London, Feb 6: The large amount of time spent reaching Australia from Britain may soon be history, for Virgin Atlantic has developed an aircraft which will facilitate trippers reach Oz in just 4½ hours.

Virgin boss Richard Branson has unveiled the designs of the first tourist spaceships, which can allow day-return trips to Oz in one day.

Billed Concorde’s much bigger and faster successor, the plane’s hi-tech liquid hydrogen engines will propel it to 3,400mph, which is 5 times the speed of sound.

But the bad news is that the aircraft which fits in 300 passengers has no windows as the searing external heat generated at Mach 5 would melt them.

The aircraft, code-named A2, is still on the drawing board.

Designers from British firm Reaction Engines said that the plane could soon be a reality.

“It sounds incredible by today’s standards but I don’t see why future generations can’t make day trips to Australasia,” The Sun quoted Virgin boss, Alan Bond, as saying.

“The total flight time from Europe to Australia, allowing for air traffic control, would be 4 hours 40 minutes,” he added.

The A2 is 139m long but lighter than a Jumbo jet. It would fly to Oz 19 miles above Earth in the middle of the stratosphere, the second layer of our atmosphere, heading over the North Pole and Pacific.

Tickets of the aircraft are expected to cost around 2,000 pounds. (ANI)