Barcelona, Spain
Barcelona-based designer Oscar Viñals has envisioned The Hyper Sting as the next generation of air travel that in years to come it could fly 170 passengers at more than three times the speed of sound, or 2,486mph—nearly twice that of Concorde.
The Hyper Sting would be much bigger than Concorde, with a length of 328ft, which is over 100ft longer than the Concorde, and a wingspan of 169ft, compared to Concorde’s 85ft.
The design’s name comes from the shape of the aircraft.
“The fuselage would have the shape of a ‘big sting’ with a very sharp ‘nose,’ that would have the function to control the front airflow (pressure/speed), in order to redistribute it over the central part and over the wings,” states. Viñals.
Two ramjet engines that are powered by a small nuclear reactor would help propel e jet to its lightning speeds.
It would additionally require the use of a cold-fusion nuclear reactor, which as of this moment in time, is still a theoretical concept.
A ‘cold fusion nuclear reactor’ is a theoretical concept at the moment, but Viñals explained that this innovative system would enable a Mach 3.5 capability, which would power two ramjet engines and four next-gen hybrid turbojets.
“Concorde was a brilliant piece of machinery, a noble experiment, but it put too many emissions in the environment, too much noise into our communities, and was too expensive to operate,” states Viñals.
“Today, there are some projects for a new era of supersonic flights from different private and public initiatives, some of those are well underway and could become in a few years a real concept.”
“Supersonic flights will return, but in this case due to some very innovative systems, like the cold fusion reactor, the date of a possible production, would be over 2030 and the cost would not be cheap,” concludes Viñals.
Viñals is also the designer behind large-scale, incredibly fast-flight projects, including the Sky Whale and Big Bird.
Project: The Hyper Sting
Designer: Oscar Viñals
