Nuclear Hyper Sting jet could take you from London to New York in 80 mins

The future of flights from London to New York could be relatively quick, thanks to the idea of a supersonic nuclear-powered plane.

Flying from these two cities in just 80 minutes, the plane, called the Hyper Sting, is a concept dreamt up by Spanish designer Oscar Viñals.

The imagined plane, which could have 170 passengers, would be almost twice as large and travel twice as fast as the last commercial supersonic jet, the Concorde. The plane stopped ceased flights in 2003.

The Hyper Sting, at 328ft, would be over 100ft longer than Concorde and have a much wider wingspan of 169ft (Concorde 85ft).

"Concorde was a brilliant piece of machinery, a noble experiment, but it put too much emissions in the environment, too much noise into our communities, and was too expensive to operate," the Barcelona designer said.

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"A new era of supersonic flight might be just around the corner, but there are challenges to overcome when it comes to flying faster than the speed of sound."Oscar Viñals/SWNS

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 new era of supersonic flight might be just around the corner, but there are challenges to overcome when it comes to flying faster than the speed of sound," Viñals said.

Viñals is also the designer behind large-scale, incredibly fast-flight projects, including the Sky Whale and Big Bird.

However, he took some time off from his massive plane designs with the Hyper Sting, focusing on designing a high-speed jet that could zip through the air in the near future.

Viñals said that would be beyond the year "2030" and "would not be cheap."

"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."

Additional reporting from Dean Murray, SWNS

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