CONCORDE may well have been the fastest way to cross the Atlantic for the last 30 years but the supersonic jet could soon find its crown stolen by an American upstart.

Nasa's new baby - which goes by the rather unglamorous name of the X-43A - can fly at an amazing ten times the speed of sound. On a trip from London to New York it would reach almost 7,200 mph, before slowing for a landing.

That makes it not merely a supersonic passenger jet like Concorde but officially a hypersonic cruiser.

On a trip to the States there won't be an in-flight movie because, at 40 minutes long, there won't be time for one.

Even a blast around the world wouldn't take in an evening meal. The whole start to finish trip could be done in just four hours - about the same time it takes to reach London from Darlington in the car.

What's more the X-43A (or Hyper-x project as the Nasa guys prefer) is no mere flight of fantasy. A prototype already exists.

The first one will make its test flight next month over the Pacific Ocean. Vince Rausch, the man behind the amazing machine, said at Hyper-x's unveiling: "This project takes what we have been doing for the past four decades in wind-tunnel research to flight. It should be a major step forward in the national capability for access to space."

At the moment Hyper-x isn't going to frighten Concorde. It's only 12-ft long for a start and after that first test flight the pilot-less test craft is expected to plunge into the Pacific, but it does represent the future for air travel.

Hyper-x uses something called a scramjet which radically compresses air and forces it through the hydrogen fueled engine. If a plane does not have to carry oxygen as well as fuel - as with the Space Shuttle - it can be lighter and therefore faster.

The drawbacks are many but the biggest has to be getting the scramjet to work at sane speeds. At the moment it only starts to operate when an aircraft breaks the sound barrier, something only Concorde can do.

That's why hyper-x will need a piggy back take off on a B-52 bomber which will haul it to a height of 24,000ft before letting go. It also needs a rocket booster to send it supersonic so the scramjet can start to work.

Undaunted Nasa reckons it is only a matter of time before a scramjet equipped passenger aircraft is making the world a much smaller place.

Leslie Williams, a space agency spokeswoman, said: "The technology can be applied to future uses though that may be 20 years away."

Those two decades will also give Nasa time to overcome the problems of acceleration, deceleration, heat build-up and the incredible braking forces needed to slow such a fast moving projectile.

The Americans have tried, and failed, before to wrest Concorde's crown. Boeing abandoned plans for a large supersonic aircraft in the 1970s and the Reagan administration lavished $2.4 billion on a national "aerospace plane" to no good effect.

But Hyper-x is the best use of scramjet technology yet.

In a few years time we could be shopping in New York and Tokyo just as easily as Newcastle or Middlesbrough.

Published: Saturday, April 28, 2001