Hypersonic aircraft company Hermeus is taking testing into its own hands. Last week, the company announced that it had successfully tested a Pratt & Whitney F100 engine—the powerhouse behind the F15 and F16—in its new High Enthalpy Air-Breathing Test Facility (HEAT) in Jacksonville, FL.
So what does that actually mean? The company can now test its engines in conditions mimicking supersonic and, ultimately, hypersonic conditions in-house.
“The HEAT facility is the foundation for us to be able to incrementally build higher and higher capability ground test infrastructure, to be able to reach higher and higher speeds,” Skyler Shuford, founder and president of Hermeus, told Tectonic.
Need for speed: Hermeus plans to release one aircraft per year until it hits hypersonic, and that means it will need to do a lot of testing. Current hypersonic test infrastructure, however, is inadequate and expensive. Shuford said it can take up to three years and millions of dollars to complete a ground test using existing facilities.
“It’s something like $15–20M to go test in a hypersonic facility on the ground. For that price, we can build an entire airplane,” he said.
And they plan to. The F100 will power Hermeus’ Quarterhorse Mk 2, an autonomous aircraft that will reach supersonic speeds above Mach 2.5, set to be launched this year. The engine will also serve as the core of the company’s Chimera engine, which will eventually be able to reach Mach 5—i.e., hypersonic speeds.
- Hermeus already completed ground tests of the Quarterhorse Mk 1, an uncrewed, remotely piloted aircraft powered by a GE J85 engine, at Edwards Air Force Base in December. Flight testing should take place soon.
- The Chimera-powered Quarterhorse Mk 3—Mk 2’s successor—is slated to launch in 2026. Hermeus hopes it will be the world’s fastest aircraft, breaking the speed record set by Lockheed Martin’s SR-71 “Blackbird.”
Shuford said the company’s testing facilities will advance alongside their aircraft. “The next phase will be adding inputs to it that allow it to be tested at stimulated higher and higher speeds,” he said. “We’re doing that incrementally alongside the need for speed with the aircraft.”
Sharing is caring: Hermeus plans to allow other companies to use its testing facilities to relieve the industry’s testing bottleneck, but has not established a process for use yet. According to Shuford, the interest is out there.
“If you have this capability, it could end up being a national asset,” he said, “I think it’s important for the country as a whole to be able to make progress on high-speed flight.”
He’s not the only one. Last week, the DoD awarded Kratos a contract worth up to $1.45B to help increase its flight-testing capabilities.