EP 85 — Hermeus' Zach Shore on Building Mach 5 Aircraft & the Path to Reusable Hypersonics

DIB Innovators · Feb 13, 2026 · 42m

Zach Shore, President of Hermeus, and his team have demonstrated a turbine-based combined cycle engine in a wind tunnel for roughly $20 million. NASA and DARPA spent nine figures on the same architecture. The system uses proprietary modifications to an F100-229 to hit Mach 3, then routes airflow around the cocooned turbine directly into a ramjet to reach Mach 5. Reverse the process to decelerate. The result is reusable air-breathing flight from zero to Mach 5. No rockets required for acceleration or terminal glide on descent. They proved the complete architecture with a GE J85 engine. Now…