BERNE. Innovative passenger car airplane intends to build a European group that can connect frankfurt With Sydney after 4 hours 15 minutes.

The Destinus supersonic aircraft, which is currently in the design phase, will run on hydrogen and fly five times the speed of sound, cutting passenger flight times by up to a quarter.

The company was founded in 2021, almost twenty years after Concorde’s farewell flight, and its first two test aircraft have successfully completed flight tests with conventional engines, pending hydrogen testing. The third prototype, Destinus 3, is expected to make its first test flight later this year.

Martina Lequist, the company’s chief executive, explains to CNN Networks: “Unlike other companies in space that experiment with static scale models, we decided to jump straight into autonomous flight with small drones before bulking up the aircraft and making it capable of carry passengers.”

Destinus chose hydrogen as its fuel because of its abundance, relatively low cost of use, and its ability to deliver unparalleled engine performance. While hydrogen propulsion is still in its infancy, Airbus is already developing such an experimental engine, which will begin flight testing in 2026.

It will be built by a European group, run on hydrogen, and the first passenger flights are expected in the 2040s.

“We are looking for a particularly long range for our aircraft. Our goal is to fly from Europe to Australia at Mach 5. Using kerosene makes the aircraft very heavy, while hydrogen makes it much lighter,” says Leqvist. The group’s long-term goal is for Destinus to run entirely on hydrogen, producing no exhaust gases. However, delays in mass production of hydrogen fuel forced the group to take a different path.

Destinus’ short-term plan is to build a prototype aircraft that will use conventional jet fuel for takeoff and then switch mid-flight to hydrogen fuel, which is more efficient at supersonic speeds.

Destinus aircraft prototypes follow the design of Waverider aircraft, a 1950s aeronautical design school whose aircraft were never selected for mass production. The group’s Swiss and French roots are reflected in the Alpine-inspired fuselage paint scheme.

The now classic waveform “has been studied for many years,” Lequist says. “Its principle lies in the ability of an aircraft to overcome the shock wave created by its own supersonic motion. This shape is ideal for limiting fuel consumption during flight as it minimizes air resistance,” she continues.

Destinus 3 will be able to carry passengers on hydrogen-fueled supersonic flights. “The aircraft is ten meters long and ten times heavier than the previous prototype. The power plant in this version is twenty times more perfect, ”says the aeronautical engineer. The company hopes to introduce such a small aircraft to industrial production in the early 2030s, capable of carrying around 25 passengers, to tap into the lucrative private jet market.

By the 2040s, the Destinus Group aims to build a range of such aircraft in various payload capacities as hydrogen prices are expected to plummet.