How fast is
fast enough?

We live in a world that is passionate about speed. Yet since 2003 and the end of Concorde, the maximum speed at which the vast majority of us can travel has been divided by two. The most rapid form of mass transport available today is an Airbus A380, which has a peak speed of about 1100 km/h. But this may be changing soon…Both future trains and planes currently in development could alter this. The much-heralded hyperloop, which promises to deliver the comfort of trains at the speed of aircraft, could well see the light of day in the coming years. The development of both infrastructure and cabins is progressing around the world. Lots of challenges remain on the technical front, such as achieving low vacuum pressure in such long tubes, specifying the relevant levitation technology and signaling system, and infrastructure safety, as well as finding the right business model for such high-speed services. And that's not to mention customer adoption of this disruptive new mode of transport, which still needs to define its standard emergency exit mechanisms.If or when the hyperloop community meets those challenges, the hyperloop train will compete with the fastest of today’s airplanes. But planes are also pushing back on their speed limits. Civil supersonic flights are back on the agenda of several innovators. A wave of aviation newcomers has emerged in the past decade, working towards MACH 1.5 + aircraft. United Airlines has already ordered 15 superfast planes. This would allow airlines to halve the time needed to reach long-haul overseas destinations. These planes also aim to be net-zero carbon by design, running entirely on Sustainable Aviation Fuel.Supersonic flights above continental land masses have been banned since several studies in the 1960s demonstrated the harmful impact of sonic booms on the population living under such flight paths. This is perhaps the next frontier for high-speed aviation: surpassing MACH speed while limiting the impact of sonic booms. NASA and its ecosystem, especially Lockheed Martin with the X-59 QueSST, are already prototyping a new generation of planes that would reduce the perceived sound of the sonic boom into a distant thunder for the population on land. Achieving this has been possible for a long time in theory. However, it is only recently that the combination of increased computing power and elaborate digital engineering solutions has enabled engineers to work on designing planes that can fly faster than sound anywhere in the world.