Posted on 05/26/2010 4:24:30 PM PDT by bkopto
In its first flight attempt, the X-51A WaveRider Wednesday completed the longest supersonic combustion ramjet-powered flight in history, flying nearly three and a half minutes at a top speed of Mach 5, although it fell short of its target duration and speed, according to Boeing.
The unmanned aerial vehicle was released from a U.S. Air Force B-52H bomber off the southern California coast around 10 a.m. and flew autonomously for more than 200 seconds, powered by its Pratt & Whitney Rocketdyne supersonic combustion ramjet motor, transmitting telemetry data to ground stations, Boeing said in a news release.
"Something then occurred that caused the vehicle to lose acceleration. At that point, the X-51A was terminated as planned."
Officials had hoped the vehicle would fly for 300 seconds and accelerate to about Mach 6 before splashing down. Despite the something that occurred, Boeing and Air Force officials touted the test.
"The technology proven today is something The Boeing Company has worked on for the past seven years," Alex Lopez, vice president of Boeing Phantom Works' Advanced Network & Space Systems, said in the news release. "It is thrilling to be a part of history and advance hypersonic science to the next level. Boeing is looking forward to transitioning the technology to operation in the near term, but for now, we are exhilarated."
Charlie Brink, X-51A program manager with the Air Force Research Laboratory at Wright-Patterson Air Force Base, Ohio, said: "We are ecstatic to have accomplished many of the X-51A test points during its first hypersonic mission. This gives us huge confidence. We built four test vehicles to get a successful flight, and we hit many of our goals right out of the gate, the first time around."
Four seconds after being released at approximately 50,000 feet, a solid rocket booster accelerated the X-51A to about Mach 4.5 before it was jettisoned. The X-51A's engine ignited on a mix of ethylene and JP-7 jet fuel and after a short period ran exclusively on JP-7 jet fuel, reaching an altitude of about 70,000 feet.
Joe Vogel, Boeing director of Hypersonics and X-51A program manager, said the test "sets the foundation for several hypersonic applications, including access to space, reconnaissance, strike, global reach and commercial transportation."
The team will review the data from today's test before scheduling additional flights with the three remaining test vehicles, which do not have recovery systems, Boeing said. X-51A is a collaborative effort of the Air Force Research Laboratory and the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, with industry partners Boeing and Pratt & Whitney Rocketdyne.
Sounds like Vandenberg and the WTR might deserve some applause too.
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Stories like this make me wish I had never abandoned my quest for an Aerospace Engineering degree.
Way to go, guys.
And as to not meeting the expected goals of the flight, well, THAT’S WHY IT’S A TEST PROGRAM! That means you’re learning new things, and making progress to getting a deliverable production system.
It sure looks tiny on the front of that booster.
Aerospike ramjet......how cool is that!
Signal: You hold the record as the fastest man in the world. What's your military background, and what was the record you set?
Knight: I was a test pilot at Edwards (Air Force Base) for a good many years and flew a lot of airplanes. (I) ended up flying the X-15, which was a rocket-powered airplane, a research airplane. There (were) only three of them built. One of my projects on the X-15 was expanding the envelope out to mach 8, for the primary purpose of developing a little scramjet engine that we would carry on the bottom of the airplane — similar to what just happened.
In that process of building up to mach 8, I set a record every time I flew that airplane. The first one was (mach) 6.3, and then 6.7, and 4,520 mph. At that time they canceled the scramjet program, and therefore there was no reason to go faster, so we canceled the X-15 program.
Signal: What year was that?
Knight: 1967. That's 35 years ago. You know, it's unconscionable that a record stands for that long. it gives you an idea of how much (research and development) that we are not doing anymore.
bump
I know what you mean, but the really cool jobs like this are few and far between.
I don’t believe there’s a booster attached yet. The entire thing is the X-51A.
My bad - the SRB is attached. Makes up a bit under half the length of what’s shown.
One clear night about nine years ago, my wife and I observed a thing flying very high from horizon to horizon which left a string of ‘puffs’ across the sky.
Aurora.
That is what I thought, also. The item took just under eleven seconds to make the trip across my visible horizon, which I estimate to be 150 degrees of open sky. If you’re into geometry, I estimated the item to be at sixty to eighty thousand feet. I did not directly count the number of ‘puffs’ but they became visibile at approximately a third of a second each from my vantage point.
Classic Aurora sighting.
That’s why I chose that pik. I was struck by the same thing.
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