Supersonic passenger planes could once again be racing through the skies with Airbus having filed a patent for what could become the 'son of Concorde'.

The new jet could fly from London to New York in an hour - opening up the possibility of a transatlantic return journey in a day.

Concorde 2 would be capable of flying more than four times the speed of sound – or more than 2,500mph, according to documents lodged with the US Patent Office by the aerospace and defence group.

• What it was like to fly by Concorde

The filings refer to an "ultra-rapid air vehicle" and "method of aerial locomotion" for the aircraft, which would cruise at an altitude of more than 100,000ft and carry up to 20 passengers or two or three tons of cargo for distances of about 5,500 miles.

According to the patent, power would come from three different types of engines:

• "at least one" conventional jet that could be retracted into the fuselage

• one or more ramjets, which use the forward speed of the aircraft to compress the air entering them before it is mixed with fuel and ignited

• a rocket motor powered by hydrogen and oxygen.