X43 Hits Mach 7!

[Einhander Sn0m4n]

http://www.sky.com/skynews/article/0,,3 ... 04,00.html

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/3575561.stm


Today is a good day for science.

[GoldenFalcon]

7x the speed of sound, eh? Wonder how the average person would feel on a first ride in such a roller coaster.

[Illuminatus Primus]

G-force only comes from acceleration. You're traveling at .9c relative to some objects in the galaxy, but from your reference point, you're fine on your ass.

[YT300000]

So, the X-15's record has been beaten after over 40 years.

It took them long enough.

[Sea Skimmer]

So, the X-15's record has been beaten after over 40 years.

It took them long enough.

Well not like they where constantly trying, the X-15 its self was over twice as fast as any aircraft to ever reach production, and we could have flown it even faster (a new engine was under development) had NASA not ended the program to help pay for other programs.

Course, the X-43 is also unmanned, and scaling it up to something, which can be manned and flown by a pilot, is going to take a considerable amount of time and money

[Howedar]

Or we could just compare it to the shuttle, which is a winged aircraft that handily beats the X-15's records.

This is not to take away from NASA's achievement on the X-43. I am very pleased that this test worked okay.

[Peregrin Toker]

I'm not too surprised by anything else than the fact that they're not keeping this secret. (the USAF already have manned Mach-5 recon planes in active service, but they're classified)

[Howedar]

Um, no they don't.

[Sarevok]

I'm not too surprised by anything else than the fact that they're not keeping this secret. (the USAF already have manned Mach-5 recon planes in active service, but they're classified)

If you mean the aurora it does not exist. It is just an urban legend.

[Sea Skimmer]

I'm not too surprised by anything else than the fact that they're not keeping this secret. (the USAF already have manned Mach-5 recon planes in active service, but they're classified)

Prove it. Wait you can't, because no such aircraft exists nor could it be hidden if it did.

[Crayz9000]

Well, a little bit more than an urban legend. See X-30 NASP. It, however, was never built; the scramjet development, as well as work on cooling systems, got bogged down so far that the project was simply canceled (although slowly; parts of it lived on up to 1995 in the form of HySTP).

[The Kernel]

It's good to see NASA interested in pushing the envelope once again. If they can keep this stuff up and maybe unveil a pretty new shuttle replacement, Americans might get interested in space travel again.

[phongn]

It's good to see NASA interested in pushing the envelope once again. If they can keep this stuff up and maybe unveil a pretty new shuttle replacement, Americans might get interested in space travel again.

Hah. Most Americans probably see space research as a money pit.

As for a shuttle replacement, bah for reusable craft.

[Beowulf]

I'm not too surprised by anything else than the fact that they're not keeping this secret. (the USAF already have manned Mach-5 recon planes in active service, but they're classified)

Are you high? Hiding something that would take 3 states to turn around in at top speed would be rather difficult...

[Einhander Sn0m4n]

I'm not too surprised by anything else than the fact that they're not keeping this secret. (the USAF already have manned Mach-5 recon planes in active service, but they're classified)

Are you high? Hiding something that would take 3 states to turn around in at top speed would be rather difficult...

LMAO!!!

The Aurora program's cool in throry, but I don't think the X-43 would be necessary as a proof-of-concept vehicle. As a very rough prototype missile or delivery vehicle, _maybe_, but not as a POC.

[Chardok]

I don't see any practical application for this outside improving missile speed. This is a neat thing to do, but outside that, would not the money have been better spent elsewhere I wonder (Besides, it was "only" 250million)

[Knife]

I don't see any practical application for this outside improving missile speed. This is a neat thing to do, but outside that, would not the money have been better spent elsewhere I wonder (Besides, it was "only" 250million)

You don't make omlets without breaking some eggs, chief. If the X-43 development keeps going then not only will missiles get faster, you could see aircraft with the capability and perhaps eventually get a London to New York flight in and have it take an hour or so.......wheeeeee......

[Sarevok]

I don't see any practical application for this outside improving missile speed. This is a neat thing to do, but outside that, would not the money have been better spent elsewhere I wonder (Besides, it was "only" 250million)

The X-43 might pave the way for a new generation aircraft capable of travelling at hypersonic speeds.

[Mayabird]

Must contribute something useful. Must contribute something useful. Must contribute something useful...

Scramjets are cool! Dammit.

No, seriously. The X-43 and successful scramjets in general could not only lead to hypersonic planes, but also new reusable vehicles for space travel.

Some of my friends won a national design competition by designing a ramjet/scramjet/rocket hybrid vehicle called the StarRunner (yes, named after Homestar Runner). I have links to their proposal if anyone's interested.

[The Kernel]

I don't see any practical application for this outside improving missile speed. This is a neat thing to do, but outside that, would not the money have been better spent elsewhere I wonder (Besides, it was "only" 250million)

You don't make omlets without breaking some eggs, chief. If the X-43 development keeps going then not only will missiles get faster, you could see aircraft with the capability and perhaps eventually get a London to New York flight in and have it take an hour or so.......wheeeeee......

You still have to make it economical which is a much bigger hurdle then developing a working hypersonic jet. There are some serious limits to how fuel efficient a hypersonic jet can be, and this demonstration, while impressive, does nothing to solve those issues.

In any case, if the government is serious about developing hypersonic planes for civilian use, what they need to do is start funneling some subsidies into airplane manufacturers just like they did during the SST development (which they eventually pulled which is why it was canned).

[Peregrin Toker]

I'm not too surprised by anything else than the fact that they're not keeping this secret. (the USAF already have manned Mach-5 recon planes in active service, but they're classified)

Prove it. Wait you can't, because no such aircraft exists nor could it be hidden if it did.

If you mean the aurora it does not exist. It is just an urban legend.

I can prove it.

1. Back in the eighties (I can't remember when) on the US Military budget appeared something called "Project Aurora" which a lot of money apparently was spent on. So the American armed forces have definately worked on some kind of Aurora project.

2. People living in the vicinity of secret air bases (not just Area 51) occassionally report jet trails resembling "donuts on a rope" (No known jet aircraft leave such trails) as well as sonic booms distinctly different from those of known supersonic aircraft. (and such reports also come from retired Air Force personnel and other people with knowledge about aviation) So the USAF have some kind of supersonic aircraft which is top secret.

3. A RAF officer (I think) - or some other type of British guy with a lot of knowledge about military aircraft - has reported seeing in broad daylight a trio of F-111s escorting an unidentified aircraft resembling an elongated black triangle, while said mystery plane was refuelling in-flight from a modified B-52. So the USA (or some other NATO power) has a triangular aircraft which Britain doesn't know of... officially.
Also, similar craft have been sighted repeatedly in Scotland, where the USAF IIRC have some of its European bases.

To be honest, I don't think these aircraft are the same - but the black triangular aircraft is most likely supersonic and definately secret.

[Rogue 9]

3. A RAF officer (I think) - or some other type of British guy with a lot of knowledge about military aircraft - has reported seeing in broad daylight a trio of F-111s escorting an unidentified aircraft resembling an elongated black triangle, while said mystery plane was refuelling in-flight from a modified B-52. So the USA (or some other NATO power) has a triangular aircraft which Britain doesn't know of... officially.

Bullshit. F-111 is a strike bomber, despite the designation. It wouldn't be flying escort for anything; when it was still in operation it usually got an escort itself. Further, why would they modify a B-52 when a KC-135 would work just as well, and in fact better?

As for enlongated triangle, you pretty adequately described an F-117.

2. People living in the vicinity of secret air bases (not just Area 51) occassionally report jet trails resembling "donuts on a rope" (No known jet aircraft leave such trails) as well as sonic booms distinctly different from those of known supersonic aircraft. (and such reports also come from retired Air Force personnel and other people with knowledge about aviation) So the USAF have some kind of supersonic aircraft which is top secret.

There's a very good reason why no known aircraft leaves "donuts on a rope" contrails. There is no possible engine or wing configuration that would leave such a trail and still fly. That's a cartoon thing.

So far you've just posted common urban legend material. That hardly constitutes proof.

[Sarevok]

1. Back in the eighties (I can't remember when) on the US Military budget appeared something called "Project Aurora" which a lot of money apparently was spent on. So the American armed forces have definately worked on some kind of Aurora project.

Was not the part of the spendings document mentioning the Aurora later dismissed as a typing error ?

[Peregrin Toker]

Bullshit. F-111 is a strike bomber, despite the designation. It wouldn't be flying escort for anything; when it was still in operation it usually got an escort itself.

I don't know... of course, it's possible that the USAF has another secret aircraft which bears a striking resemblance to a F-111 from a long distance but otherwise has nothing in common with it.

Further, why would they modify a B-52 when a KC-135 would work just as well, and in fact better?

Okay, I can't remember if the RAF officer actually identified the refuelling aircraft...

As for enlongated triangle, you pretty adequately described an F-117.

Wrong - he made a drawing of what he saw, and it looked NOTHING like a F-117. (the sighted aircraft was at least the length of a F-111, and didn't have the vaguely W-shaped tail of the F-117)

There's a very good reason why no known aircraft leaves "donuts on a rope" contrails. There is no possible engine or wing configuration that would leave such a trail and still fly. That's a cartoon thing.

What about experimental engine types which are being kept completely secret to anyone outside the airforce and the corporations which manufacture them?


BTW - what about the unidentified sonic booms, then? Those which even aviation experts can't explain?

[The Kernel]

3. A RAF officer (I think) - or some other type of British guy with a lot of knowledge about military aircraft - has reported seeing in broad daylight a trio of F-111s escorting an unidentified aircraft resembling an elongated black triangle, while said mystery plane was refuelling in-flight from a modified B-52. So the USA (or some other NATO power) has a triangular aircraft which Britain doesn't know of... officially.

Bullshit. F-111 is a strike bomber, despite the designation. It wouldn't be flying escort for anything; when it was still in operation it usually got an escort itself. Further, why would they modify a B-52 when a KC-135 would work just as well, and in fact better?

Actually, it was supposedly a KC-135. Here's the full details, although I don't vouch for its authenticity. It was written by a Wall Street Journal reporter and published in 1992.

http://wave.prohosting.com/aurora85/art ... urnal.html

Magazine Suggests Aircraft Has Flown Mach 8 for Years

New evidence suggests that the U.S. is operating secret spy planes, possibly cruising as fast as eight times the speed of sound, and that such aircraft may have been flying for over three years.

An article prepared for Jane's Defence Weekly, a British military-affairs journal, suggests strongly that a $1 billion plane capable of far greater speed than the current world record-holding SR-71 spy plane is indeed in service globally. The speculation is based in part on a trained aircraft observer's recently reported 1989 sighting of a mysterious wedge-shaped aircraft, flying over the North Sea in a formation with two U.S.-built F-111 bombers and a KC-135 tanker.

The description of the plane given by British oil-drilling engineer and trained aircraft spotter Chris Gibson is sketchy--little more, in fact, than an unfamiliar aircraft shape he says he watched from his remote North Sea oil rig for about 90 seconds one hazy August day three years ago.

But in an intriguing analysis for Jane's, made available to The Wall Street Journal in advance of next week's scheduled publication, the stealth technology expert who wrote the article uses the sighting as the missing link in a chain of events he believes may explain a number of U.S. military mysteries.

Citing other experts in so-called hypersonic aviation, author Bill Sweetman paints a picture of the hush-hush reconnaissance plane that he believes replaced Lockheed Corp.'s SR-71 Blackbird when the U.S. took it out of service in early 1990. That jet, which holds the official speed record of 2,193 mph, about Mach 3.3, would be a slow-poke compared to the Mach 8 aircraft (5,280 mph) that Mr. Sweetman suggests flew over Mr. Gibson that day in the North Sea.

The Pieces Fall Into Place

His article proposes that the new plane -- rumored for years to be called Aurora because that name mysteriously popped up as an unexplained defense budget line item in 1984 next to the SR-71 -- is also built by Lockheed, with engines by Rockwell International Corp.'s Rocketdyne division. The Jane's report suggests: The planes cost about $1 billion each; they first flew in about 1985; and they have been the source of a series of strange earthquake-like rumbles still occurring in Southern California and other areas of the world.

With "this last piece" of information, Mr. Sweetman says in an interview, "there are so many things that fall into place." The most important, he says, may be the mystery of why the U.S. retired its last SR-71 spy plane in 1990 with the explanation that it would rely instead on satellites to meet the reconnaissance needs once satisfied by the aircraft, believed capable of operations well above 100,000 feet.

The Jane's article, echoing others' suggestions that the statement about satellites was intended as a cover for development of a new spy plane, notes that aircraft have a certain reconnaissance usefulness that orbiting cameras can't match.

"The satellite system is believed to be capable of producing imagery within 24 hours of a request: at Mach 8, however, the flight time to any point on Earth is under three hours," the article says. "Unlike a satellite, the aircraft can be scheduled to pass over a target at any desired time of the day," and flies closer to the target.

The 'Skunk Works' Legacy

Lockheed won't comment on any secret programs it has going, and refers questions about reconnaissance to the Air Force. But Lockheed Advanced Development Co., the unit popularly known as the "Skunk Works," long has been considered the shop likely to be producing any future spy planes because it developed the last two generations of U-2 and SR-71 planes in the 1950s and 1960s. Both planes flew spy missions in total secrecy for years before being acknowledged -- in the U-2's case only after pilot Francis Gary Powers was shot down in one in 1960. The California Skunk Works also produced the F-117 Stealth fighter, which also flew secretly before its existence was acknowledged.

The explanation of what he'd seen didn't become clear to Mr. Gibson, a veteran of the now-disbanded Royal Observer Corps ot volunteer aircraft spotters, until he recently saw a drawing in an aircraft magazine of a putative hypersonic aircraft design that matched the perfect triangle shape with its 75-degree nose.

"I nearly spat my coffee out all over the floor," says the 30-year-old Mr. Gibson of his reaction to finally seeing a design that seemed to explain what he'd seen three years earlier. In a telephone interview from Houston, where he is attending an engineering training program, Mr. Gibson says that while he couldn't make out much detail of the mystery plane's underside, he easily eliminated all other aircraft shapes that might explain planes of the same size, including F-111s with wings in a swept-back position.

According to the Jane's report, the "perfect 75-degree swept triangle" described by Mr. Gibson corresponded "almost exactly" to designs of Mach 5, or hypersonic, aircraft designed but not built over the past 25 years. Mr. Sweetman took his collected data about the size and shape of the plane and descriptions of unidentified aircraft noise reported from such places as Edwards and Beale Air Force bases in California, where secret planes are often held, and presented them to Paul Czysz, an aerospace-engineering professor at St. Louis University for an opinion. Prof. Czysz is quoted as speculating that such a plane could be powered by liquid methane, which could take it to a maximum cruise speed of Mach 8.

As for selecting Lockheed and Rockwell as the likely makers, the Jane's article notes that "Lockheed's financial figures have indicated a continuing, large flow of income for 'classified' and 'special mission' aircraft." The engine responsible for the strange noises that have been heard in California "is closer to a rocket than to a turbojet," the article says. Lockheed and Rockwell worked together on a losing bid to build the bomber that eventually became Northrop Corp.'s B-2, the Jane's article says. And while it isn't noted there, one industry official earlier this year confirmed that the two companies had been involved in a classified project for years.

Figuring that the aircraft would likely be in very low production -- only 50 SR-71s or predecessor aircraft were made, beginning in the early 1960s -- the article says that "each reconnaissance aircraft could easily cost as much as $1 billion." Lockheed reported sales of aeronautical systems totaling $2.2 billion in 1991, an amount that has steadily fallen from the $4.2 billion recorded in 1987.

Lockheed Aeronautical Systems spokesman Richard Stadler, a veteran of having to decline comment on past classified programs, says the company won't discuss revenues of any classified programs, but adds that at the Skunk Works, "supporting the F-117 is the largest program we've got now, as far as active programs go."

A spokesman for the Rockwell Rocketdyne division says the company doesn't build engines for any reconnaissance aircraft, although he adds that Rocketdyne does have some classified programs that it can't discuss.

The speculation about hypersonic aircraft flying over California has special interest for that state's residents, many of whom have felt what they thought were small rumbling earthquakes for nearly a year and a half -- only to be told by representatives of the U.S. Geological Survey that some peculiar, unreported aircraft were probably responsible. Scientists have referred to the phenomena as "airquakes," and even described the speed and size of aircraft that might cause them. The Jane's article suggests that the speed and size correspond to those of the mystery spy plane.

As an author, Mr. Sweetman has had considerable experience studying secret aircraft, having written extensively on the Stealth fighter before the Air Force disclosed the existence of that program. He has since written a book on the program. His magazine article engages in heavy speculation, of course, calling its findings "a tentative analysis."

When asked about the sightings, a public affairs officer at the Air Force, which for years denied the existence of the plane now known as the F-117, says, "As far as the Air Force is concerned, there is no such program," and satellites are doing all reconnaissance work.