JACKSONVILLE, Fla. – The city of Jacksonville is set to break ground on a new hypersonic testing facility on Monday, according to News 6 partner WJXT-TV.
The facility will be known as “HEAT” and will be built at Cecil Airport.
The aerospace company Hermeus tasked with developing the technology says the goal is a plane that could travel between New York and London in 90 minutes.
Normally the trip takes about 7 hours.
Hermeus said the goal is Mach 5. That’s over 3,000 miles per hour and five times the speed of sound.
The company said the ability to connect cities faster can help global economies.
“We need these capabilities to make the future faster, the faster future that we see,” Hermeus co-founder AJ Piplica said. “But we’re not just building this for us at Hermeus. We’re also building this to share the facility with our D.O.D partners, our commercial partners to expand hypersonic progress industry wide.”
Hermeus is based in Atlanta but is now expanding to Jacksonville to test hypersonic technology.
Project Heat says it will bring 100 full-time jobs to the area by the end of 2028 while bringing in a capital investment of $135 million.
In return, the company will set up shop at Cecil Field and receive up to $2 million in incentives.
The operation will start by focusing on military instillations of the engine, but hope to eventually move into the commercial landscape.
“So long-term vision of the company that we’ve always had is the New York to London in 90 minutes,” co-founder Glenn Case said. “And that’s a great dream and having that kind of capability, real economic growth follows, real GDP growth follows that. However, without a strong military market that future just doesn’t exist.”
According to our news partners at the Jacksonville Daily Record, the facilities include two engine test cells, an office building and a “hush house” for controlled aircraft systems testing.
The “hush house” will keep the noise to a minimum outside of the testing site. Hermeus representatives said they do not expect it to be any louder than the operations already happening at Cecil Airport.
Hermeus co-founder and CEO AJ Piplica said a one-way ticket from New York to London would probably cost around $3,000.
The company will begin testing engines by the end of 2024 with construction plans set to take place over five to 10 years.