This would allow a jet engine to run safely at much higher power than is currently possible without overheating, meaning it could reach speeds of more than 2,000mph.
Alan Bond, who led the research, said: "If you wanted to go to Australia, or anywhere else in the antipodal world in four hours or so, then that would be the best way to go and you would pay [the cost of] a first class or business class flight."
Incorporating the "Sabre" engine system into a passenger aircraft would involve redesigning its entire engine, so inventors do not expect it would ever be used for more than 10 per cent of flights.
But they claim it could revolutionise space flight, the purpose it was designed for, by allowing aircraft to fly directly into orbit and back to earth in one clean stage.
