arlier this month, a curved aluminum skeleton 40 feet long sat waiting in Hermeus’ cavernous Atlanta factory. It was the prototype of a drone called Quarterhorse. It will never fly. Instead, it’s scheduled for ground-testing starting in September. Hermeus CEO AJ Piplica and his cofounders believe it’s the first step on a long road to an audacious goal: building a plane capable of carrying 20 passengers at hypersonic speed — five times faster than sound, or 3,850 miles per hour.
Quarterhorse is intended to serve as a reusable testbed to subject materials and equipment to high-speed conditions. Hermeus won a $30 million contract from the U.S. Air Force that will go toward building and flying three versions of the aircraft. First flight is slated for 2024, and Piplica says he expects the total development cost to be under $100 million.
Darkhorse, seen here in an artist’s rendering, is planned to be roughly the size of an F-15 fighter jet, and will be powered from takeoff by the same engine – an F100 turbofan – before a ramjet kicks in to accelerate the drone to Mach 5.At that point, he says, Hermeus will “have built a strong enough financial foundation to actually invest in making the transition to Halcyon without a ridiculous amount of private capital.