Posted on 06/06/2010 4:09:01 AM PDT by valkyry1
Boeing's X-51 WaveRider has made aviation history by completing the longest ever supersonic* combustion ramjet-powered flight. The unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) flew for almost three and a half minutes in the skies off the southern California coast on Wednesday, reaching an altitude of about 70,000 feet and hitting hypersonic (Mach 5) speeds.
The X-51 WaveRider scramjet (supersonic combustion ramjet) is being developed for the Air Force Research Laboratory and the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) by Boeing and Pratt & Whitney Rocketdyne.
The goal of the program is to create a free-flying, scramjet-powered vehicle capable of operating continuously on jet fuel and achieving continuous hypersonic speeds - a challenge which program officials compare to "lighting a match in a hurricane and keeping it burning."
(Excerpt) Read more at gizmag.com ...
Its a YF-12. Back in the day of the Mid 80’s I was out there and the B-70 was outside and the YF-12 was over in another hanger. Being a aviation/engineering buff I did close inspections of both of them. No I did not get in the cockpit!
The Chinese will want the blueprints as collateral for buying more Treasuries to fund ObamaCare...
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