[SandRat]

Ok all you Aeronautical Engineers have fun.

[MARKUSPRIME]

Excellent!

[gaijin]

awesome!

[radar101]

http://www.space.com/businesstechnology/060126_darpa_falcon.html

[SauronOfMordor]

I think this is supposed to dovetail with the SCAMjet technology the Air Force and NASA are working on. Going back to an article from 2003 on it:

Hypersonic aircraft are expected to surpass the abilities of today's supersonic planes by reaching speeds of Mach 7 or more, over seven times the speed of sound. Current efforts, such as NASA's X-43 program, are designed to use a supersonic combustion ramjet -- or scramjet -- to zoom through the air at up to Mach 10, about 7,381 miles (11,880 kilometers) per hour.

FALCON's requirements call for a hypersonic plane with a range of 9,000 nautical miles (16,668 kilometers) and the ability to fly heavy loads of ordinance or other payload to targets from its home airstrip somewhere in the continental United States.

"This system could become the bomber of the future," said DARPA spokeswoman Jan Walker of FALCON in an e-mail interview

The advantage of SCRAMjet technology over rockets is that the jet uses atmospheric oxygen, instead of carrying liquid oxygen. In a hydrogen/oxygen liquid fueled rocket, the liquid oxygen accounts for 88% of the fuel weight. Reducing fuel weight means more payload capacity

[CALawyer]

"For an aircraft to achieve hypersonic speeds, ranging from 6,000 to 15,000 mph (Mach 9 to Mach 22), and reach altitudes between 100,000 to 150,000 feet, it needs an airframe structure designed to survive intense heat and pressure."

They should be close by now, given the development of the Aurora project. In LA, about 10-15 years ago, we used to hear sonic booms that the "experts" attributed to the Aurora. Caltech (I think) said the sonic booms were coming from a moving object traveling at a constant altitude (i.e., not plummeting to earth like a meteorite) and, IIRC, at 4,000 to 5,000 mph.

[brooklin]

Imagine the turn radius.

[ElTianti]

Bad news for the bad guys.

[USNBandit]

Ludicrous Speed, Go!

[Phsstpok]

Way back in the Reagan era I recall the (greatest ever) President making a comment about being able to recall ICBMs. Critics made fun of the "old fool" who didn't realize that you couldn't recall an ICBM.

I heard a story that some in the White House and DOD actually encouraged that notion because they thought the remark came from a briefing they had given to President Reagan about the military implications of the X-30 program (the "National Aero Space Plane," NASP, or "Orient Express"). They said that they had laid out the benefits of developing such a hypersonic aircraft as a bomber because it would be like having an ICBM that you could recall. They were afraid that the President had made a slip about that program and wanted to encourage folks to ignore the remark.

That's 20 years ago, back when the youngest Secretary of Defense in history was in charge of such programs. What a coincidence. That was Donald Rumsfeld. I wonder why this program is getting pushed now? Hmmmmmmmmmm?

Damn, I love that man.

[Yo-Yo]

Nah, we don't need all this crap. Just give Burt Rutan fifty grand and he'll have a prototype built in three weeks.

</sarcasm>

[Lauretij2]

Strap W80's on these, and we got a good system.

In fact, scrap the W80's already and get some new warheads too.