The “potential adversaries'” hypersonic weapons, mentioned by RAF head Stephen Hillier, are currently being developed by Russia, China and the US. These include the state-of-the-art Russian Avangard missile, which is capable of flying at a speed of more than 20 Mach.
The UK's Royal Air Force (RAF) has announced plans to create a hypersonic plane which will be capable of flying at more than 3,000 miles (almost 5,000 kilometres) per hour.
Speaking at the Air and Space Power conference on Wednesday, Air Chief Marshal Stephen Hillier, the head of the RAF, unveiled the two-year project, which stipulates that the Ministry of Defence will inject $12 billion into the development of new hypersonic engines over the next two years.
He underscored that the sophisticated engines, which he said will allow the new plane to tackle enemy air defences at a speed of more than Mach 4, or four times the speed of sound, would be “exploring the boundaries of technology”.
One option may include modifying the engines of RAF fourth-generation Eurofighter Typhoons or fifth-generation F-35 Lightning planes so that the aircraft can benefit from elements of hypersonic propulsion, according to Hillier.
“If we are going to maintain our technological advantage we have to move fast”, he said, adding that we have noted very carefully what the Russians are doing”.
According to him, “potential adversaries” have prompted the RAF to “face increasingly sophisticated…
