This hypersonic jet engine currently passed a crucial check in the Australian-desert

Air travel sucks. It’s too long, it’s rough, everything’s covered in germs, &  why are those windows round anyway? How extended have I been sitting here? Why does my chair smell like gin and tonic?

If there’s one thing flight expert around the world are interested in, it’s creation our jaunts around the world faster, with this idea jet aiming to get you from London to New York in 30 minutes, and this one in a cool 11 minutes flat. But a idea is just a concept, and there’s no guarantee that it will ever get complete.

That’s why a combined US-Australian military research scheme called Hypersonic International Flight study Experimentation (HIFiRE) is so exciting - its skill is well and truly out of the concept period, and is now life form trialled at the world's largest land-based taxing range in Woomera, SouthAustralia. 

With the help of aerospace giant Boeing & German space agency DLR, the HIFiRE squad plans to total 10 separate tests with their new engine between 2009 and 2018, in the hopes that it strength one day authority a hypersonic jet.

Right now, they’re difficult a scramjet engine fond of to a rocket booster - which isn’t something any of us are going to be flying to get to our after that holiday destination - but with each winning trial, the technology will be whittled down to amazing that can actually be but into a passenger plane.

Tests will also be approved out at Norway's Andoya Rocket Range.

According to the Australian defence department, the the majority recent test was successfully completed yesterday, when the engine was clever to reach an altitude of 278 km (172 miles) at a object speed of Mach 7.5 - that’s seven times the speed of sound.

"That's far earlier than the 'supersonic' Concorde aircraft ever achieve, and passes the threshold for 'hypersonic travel' instead - defined as travel at extra than five times the speed of sound," Duncan Geere information for Tech Radar. "At that speed, you could get to anywhere on the planet in a couple of hours."

And, as that 1960s speed proof for manned flight says loud and clear - we're not so good quality at getting passenger planes to hypersonic, or still supersonic, speeds.

That's what make HIFiRE project so exciting, though - the combined strength of the US and Australian military, plus profitable giants Boeing and DLR aren't so interested in unachievable moonshots, so if anyone's leaving to get us flying at unimaginable speeds around the world, it's these-guys.