Everyone loves the idea of a plane that could smash the previous records for commercial travel around the globe - but New York to Sydney in 32 minutes sounds crazy, right?
The Antipode is a concept aircraft dreamed up by Canadian engineer Charles Bombardier from Imaginactive.
Bombardier's plane would travel at around 40,000 feet and up to speeds close to 12,500 MPH, giving it the chance to traverse the globe at knee-tremblingly fast times.
Imaginactive says the plane would take off directly from any airfield using rocket boosters (which then handily detach and return to earth), before the main fuselage kicks the "supersonic combustion ramjet engine" into action that accelerates to Mach 24.
The designers reckon the aircraft would be suited to high-spending business travellers who need to quickly move from one side of the earth to another (or the military, of course).
But how does the aircraft slow down, so that its ten passengers reach their destination comfortably, you might ask?
Imaginactive says:
"The plane’s wings would have enough lift to glide and land on a 6,000-foot runway. Emergency compact rocket boosters similar to the EZ-Rocket from X-COR aerospace could be ignited in case the aircraft needed to make a second landing attempt and could also be used to slow down the aircraft."
Simple, eh.
Here are some of the conceptual visual designs, created by Abhishek Roy from India-based Lunatic Koncepts.