[Tee tiong huat]

Superfast drone fitted with new 'rotating detonation rocket engine' approaches the speed of sound. Engineers have successfully flown a drone at near-supersonic speeds thanks to a new type of engine that burns like a rocket could one day lead to hypersonic Mach 9 commercial flights.

The drone, which resembled a rocket, flew 10 miles (16 km) at Mach 0.9 — over 680 miles per hour — using 80% of the engine's available thrust. This image is purely illustrative. Venus Aerospace has completed the inaugural test flight of a drone fitted with its "rotating detonation rocket engine" (RDRE) — accelerating it to just under the speed of sound. Company wants to one day build superfast commercial jets using this new type of engine.

Test flight, conducted Feb. 24, the company flew the drone, which is 8 feet (2.4 meters) long and weighs 300 pounds (136 kilograms) to an altitude of 12,000 ft (3658 m) by an Aero L-29 Delfín plane, before it was deployed and the RDRE was activated, company representatives said.

Drone flew 10 miles (16 km) at Mach 0.9 — over 680 miles per hour — using 80% of the RDRE’s available thrust. The successful flight proved the viability of RDRE and the associated onboard flight systems. Three weeks earlier, Venus Aerospace demonstrated the viability of its RDRE technology with a long-duration test burn — during which engineers showed their engine worked for the duration of this test flight.

The RDRE technology is 15% more efficient than conventional rocket engines, Venus Aerospace representatives said in a statement. As a result, an RDRE-propelled craft could theoretically travel farther on the same amount of fuel as conventional engines that combust fuel at constant pressure. Some have also theorized it could be as much as  25% more efficient than current technologies.


The successful test flight raises odds of commercially viable supersonic flight. One of the long-term goals for Venus Aerospace is develop a commercial supersonic aircraft could travel at Mach 9 (over 6,800 mph) (11,000 km/h)
https://www.livescience.com/technology/e...d-of-sound