The hypersonic plane designed to reach Australia in under five hours

Flying between Australia and North Europe could virtually become a day trip, if plans to build a craft, dubbed the A2, that could complete the journey in four hours and 40 minutes, come to fruition.

The artist’s impression looks like something out of a science fiction film. But a hypersonic passenger plane that could fly to Australia from northern Europe in less than five hours has been designed in Britain. With funding from the European Space Agency, a team of engineers and scientists has come up with the A2, a plane they believe could carry 300 passengers at a top speed of more than 3,000mph.

Such a craft would be fuelled by liquid hydrogen, which is apparently a little more environmentally friendly that current aviation fuels, and being lighter than a Boeing 747, it could still land on existing runways at major airports.