An aircraft running on hydrogen that races through the upper atmosphere at speeds exceeding twelve times the speed of sound might seem like a fantasy reserved exclusively for science fiction. That, however, is the promise behind the Australian Hypersonix Launch Systems’ DART AE demonstrator, a small and uncrewed vehicle that is built around the SPARTAN scramjet, a completely new kind of engine. The immediate objective of this development program is not to make this aircraft a vehicle for passenger travel.
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How Pratt & Whitney Traded The Widebody Engine Market For Narrowbody Dominance
- Guest authors
- August 24, 2026
- 0
For decades, Pratt & Whitney was one of the three dominant names in large commercial aircraft propulsion. Its PW4000 family powered hundreds of widebodies, including early Boeing 777s, 767s, and 747s, as well as Airbus A330s.Today, however, the competitive landscape looks dramatically different, and new-generation passenger widebody entering service are powered by either GE Aerospace or Rolls-Royce, leaving Pratt & Whitney absent from an entire generation of flagship aircraft.