AJ Piplica

AJ Piplica is an American entrepreneur and engineer who is the founder and CEO of Hermeus, a company developing hypersonic aircraft. At Hermeus, Piplica leads a team aiming to build the world's fastest aircraft and accelerate the global human transportation network through the development of hypersonic aircraft. Piplica was previously CEO of Generation Orbit Launch Services, Inc. and worked at Jacobs Technology and SpaceWorks Enterprises, Inc.

Piplica was born in New York to Croatian parents. His mother is from Malinska on the island of Krk, and his father is from Dobrinče, a village near Imotski. Piplica grew up in the White Plains area before moving to Florida with his parents at six years old. Piplica attended high school in the Tampa Bay area leaving in 2005 for college, attending the Georgia Institute of Technology from 2005 to 2010 for his bachelor of science in aerospace engineering and from 2010 to 2012 earning a masters in the same field. While at college, Piplica toured NASA's Johnson Space Center in Houston. He credits these tours as getting him passionate about aerodynamics, eventually focusing on hypersonic flight specifically.

Piplica joined SpaceWorks Enterprises, Inc. in 2010, working for the Atlanta-based company while completing his master's. While at the company, he worked on reusable launch vehicle programs and the early stage of hypersonic aircraft development programs. In 2013, he became CEO of Generation Orbit Launch Services, Inc. While at the company, he led the inception and development of the X-60A, a US Air Force hypersonic X-plane.

In November 2018, Piplica founded and became CEO of Hermeus, a hypersonic aircraft start-up aiming to build the world's fastest aircraft. Hermeus has raised $176 million in funding, including a $60 million US Air Force (USAF) Small Business Award to test hypersonic aircraft and a 2022 $100 million series B round led by Sam Altman. Hermeus aims to build Mach 5 aircraft that travel at over twice the speed of the supersonic Concorde, crossing the Atlantic in ninety minutes. As well as the USAF, Hermeus is partnered with NASA to develop autonomous aircraft to derisk hypersonic technology and solve national security challenges. In October 2023, the company began testing Quarterhouse MK 0, its first aircraft that will demonstrate the turbine-based combined cycle engine, Chimera. If successful, the Hermeus states it will be capable of surpassing the jet-powered airspeed record (2,193.2 miles per hour) set by the SR-71 aircraft in 1976. Once in production, Quarterhouse will be used for commercial testing and development purposes to re-risk future planned vehicles Darkhorse and Halcyon.