American aerospace startup Hermeus announced the groundbreaking of its new test facility and a flight test base at the Cecil Airport in Jacksonville, Florida. Named HEAT (High Enthalpy Air-Breathing Facility), the facility will be used by Hermeus for advanced testing of its hypersonic engines and its Quartersonic and Darkhorse aircraft. According to the company, the engine testing will commence by the end of this year with outdoor static testing. The facility will enable Hermeus to create conditions necessary for high-supersonic and low-hypersonic modeling. The site will also serve as the initial base for the company’s high-mach flight test capabilities starting in 2026. The startup claimed that the facility will “become a national asset for hypersonic testing.”
Hermeus announced plans to develop the facility at the groundbreaking ceremony, claiming that it would be built in phases. “The United States is lacking in the capability to rapidly and economically test air-breathing hypersonic engines,” said Hermeus co-founder and CEO AJ Piplica. “The few test facilities available have years-long waitlists and are prohibitively expensive. The commercially operated testing services that we will offer at our HEAT facility are more economical and responsive to dynamic test requirements and are better suited to match the ever-changing needs of the warfighter.”
Cecil Airport is a former Naval Air Station and features significant test infrastructure, including multiple test cells and an aircraft hush house. Hermeus plans to invest $135 million in the project, which is expected to create more than 100 jobs over the next decade. The company plans to test a variety of engines and propulsion systems at HEAT, which includes the Pratt & Whitney F100 engine and the company’s proprietary hypersonic Chinemra engine that will propel its aircraft to speeds up to Mach 5. The startup has made significant progress after being backed by Steve Case, an American billionaire who co-founded AOL.
The Atlanta-based company is currently developing a turbine-based combined cycle engine (TBCC), which is a hybrid propulsion unit that combines a traditional off-the-shelf jet engine with a ramjet. Hermeus claims it will develop enough thrust to propel its hypersonic aircraft to speeds up to Mach 5, which is more than twice the maximum speed of Concorde. At those speeds, the travel time between New York and Paris will be reduced to just 90 minutes. The United States is currently leading the race to reintroduce hypersonic commercial air travel. Several months ago, Boom Supersonic opened its Superfactory in North Carolina, which will be used by the company to produce its Overture supersonic jet. The aerospace company has already successfully completed two flight tests of its demonstrator aircraft and plans to put its Overture jet into production by the end of this decade. .
