Hacker News new | ask | show | jobs
by will_asouka 3033 days ago
It's not the engines that would prove limiting to cruise speed at those altitudes, it's the aerodynamic design of the wing. Airliners are flying at between 78 to 86% of the speed of sound, you can't improve on that in a way that would be dramatically noticeable without a huge redesign.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Swept_wing#Subsonic_and_transo...

Many 757s have RR engines, but adding more power would allow take off with higher weight from shorter runways etc, not faster cruise.