The long-term goal is to fully hydrogen-powered and zero emissions, but while hydrogen production is still scaling up, its short-term plan is to power takeoff with Jet A – conventional aviation fuel – and then switch when they hit speeds of around Mach 3 “because hydrogen doesn’t really become useful or better than Jet A until you get up to supersonic speeds.” Using kerosene means that the vehicle would become quite heavy, while hydrogen is very light in comparison.” Hydrogen also has higher energy density than traditional jet fuel. “We try to go very, very ultra-long range with our vehicles,” says Löfqvist, “and that is to fly from Europe all the way to Australia at Mach 5. Airbus is developing a hydrogen jet engine it says will begin flight testing in 2026. Hydrogen-powered aviation is still in its infancy, with hydrogen jet engines yet to enter commercial use. Hydrogen is the Destinus fuel of choice due to it being a clean, renewable energy source, increasingly inexpensive to produce, and capable of helping it realize its speed and long-range ambitions. While other top contenders in the field such as Boom Supersonic are “focusing more on the development of the mockups and understanding of how it works and trying to get these piloted aircraft working, we’re going directly to autonomous flights.” The strategy is to “develop smaller-size drones before we scale it up to become a large pilot-driven or passenger-carrying aircraft.” “There are different approaches to doing this,” says Löfqvist. Martina Löfqvist, the company’s business development manager, caught up with CNN over video call to explain its model and why the team hopes it can be the one to finally usher in the new age of hypersonic travel. Its third prototype – Destinus 3 – is set to make its inaugural flight by the end of the year. Its first two prototypes have made successful test flights and are about to start testing hydrogen-powered flight. Headquartered in Switzerland with a team of around 120 staff spread out in Spain, France and Germany, Destinus was established in 2021 but has been hitting milestones fast. The Destinus concept is hydrogen-powered flight at five times the speed of sound, cutting flight duration to less than a quarter of current commercial air travel. Now a European hypersonic startup is having a go, promising enticing journey times such as Frankfurt to Sydney in 4 hours 15, or Memphis to Dubai in 3 hours 30. In recent years, numerous pretenders to the throne – supersonic, hypersonic, hydrogen-powered, with anti-boom technology – have been whizzing round, conceptually at least, but many of these projects promising seamless super-fast travel have instead stalled, sputtered out or hit delays. And when you are satisfied with the results, you can easily export your icons for immediate use.It’s now been two decades since the era of supersonic commercial flight ended with Concorde’s final touchdown in an airfield in southwest England. Moreover, you can not only see but also replace the images separately for different sizes. Just drag your image into the app, click Generate, and IconFly will immediately produce all of the icon previews to instantly see how your icons will look in different sizes.
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