By 2035, hypersonic hydrogen planes could connect Frankfurt to Sydney in just four hours, compared to twenty today. These planes will fly using liquid hydrogen and will produce no CO2 emissions.
Destinus unveiled its ambitions at Viva Technology, exhibiting one of the first prototypes it has already managed to fly. Named Jungfrau, it has a hydrogen-powered post-combustion system. Its first flight, which took place near Munich in 2021, represents a big step for Destinus in the development of its hypersonic flight plans, even if this first prototype did not exceed 250 km/h. A future model should reach the speed of sound, which would be a first for a device powered by hydrogen. This record flight is expected to take place in 2024.
Two projects are in the pipeline at Destinus: a 25-seat jet (code name Destinus S) and an airliner that can accommodate 400 people (Destinus L). The idea is to fly up to Mach 5, that is to say five times the speed of sound, or more than 6000 km/h. For comparison, an airliner currently flies around 900 km/h. Even the Concorde, legendary supersonic aircraft in service from 1976 to 2003, did not exceed 2000 km/h.
With such technology, it would be possible to travel to the other side of the world in less than four hours. The start-up takes the example of a flight between Memphis in the United States and Shanghai in China which would last only 3 h 30 min, against 14 h 15 min currently. These devices could reach a record altitude of 33,000 m.
In addition to their performance in terms of speed, future Destinus aircraft are also intended to be clean, as they use hydrogen as fuel. The goal of the Swiss start-up is to achieve a perfectly carbon-neutral activity, thanks to hydrogen produced using renewable energies. For many, hydrogen indeed represents a solution for the future for both long-distance and high-speed flights, in particular because it takes up less space to store than conventional fuel.
Destinus aims to revolutionize the aeronautical industry by flying its first passengers in just over ten years.