Concorde, schmoncorde. At least that's what we assume Reaction Engines' A2 would utter if it could in fact speak. The supersonic jet, designed by Oxfordshire's own Reaction Engines, could one day shuttle passengers from Europe to Down Under in less than five hours, cruising at up to 4,000 miles-per-hour along the way. Granted, the aircraft is still in concept mode at the moment, but if all goes to plan, it could be operational "within 25 years." Reportedly, the 156-yard long jet could maintain a speed of 3,800 miles-per-hour -- over twice that of the famed Concorde -- and could carry 300 guests on each trip. Who knows how much a seat would cost, but we're guessing the sky's the limit.

[Via Engadget Spanish]

Many of us here at Engadget are, or at least wish we were, the jetsetting type. The type to constantly bounce around to Boston, San Francisco, Hong Kong and other exotic locales. We'd definitely appreciate being able to traverse the continent in two hours, and while our overloads, erm, friendly bosses might appreciate that, our accounting department probably wouldn't. And surely this new generation of supersonic flights, which will reach top speeds of Mach 1.8, aren't going to come cheap. According to Wired News, this new supersonic private jet, called QSST ("quiet supersonic travel") is in production by Lockheed Martin. The new jet sports a "patented inverted V-tail", which will reduce the sound of its sonic boom to less than a hundredth of the original Concorde, one of the reasons why it was met with limited success in the US. The QSST's current price tag of $80 million is still cheap by comparison to the first generation of Concorde jets, which cost $46 million in 1977 (nearly $150 million in 2005 dollars when adjusted for inflation). So save your pennies, kids, we'll be saving ours.