U.S. Air Force successfully tests hypersonic missile that travels five times the speed of sound

Fox News ^ | 12/16/2022 | Pilar Arias

[minnesota_bound]

We started making these way back late 40’s and in the 50’s.

Lockheed AQM-60 Kingfisher
Maximum speed: Mach 4.3
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lockheed_AQM-60_Kingfisher

Typical bureaucrats!!

Excerpt: The Kingfisher was capable of evading the vast majority of weapons systems it was used to test, despite the systems being designed to destroy hypersonic missiles in flight. This created much embarrassment at the USAF and considerable political fallout. This led to the discontinuation of production in 1959 and the cancellation of the project in the mid-1960s.[3]

[farmguy]

“all objectives were met,”

Meaning that the missile had all the right pronouns.

[Yo-Yo]

Meaning that the missile had all the right pronouns.

As did the engineers who designed it.

[pepsi_junkie]

Lots of comments about how this is wasteful or stupid on this thread. The threat is real. I will point you to this:

https://www.wsj.com/articles/advanced-maneuver-in-china-hypersonic-missile-test-shows-new-military-capability-11637545843

This is one of many articles over the past couple of years that show the situation. We've been in an arms race with china for missiles that can destroy the other sides ability to fight before they can react and which are way way faster than any of our defensive systems can throw at them. And we've been losing it badly.

[NorthMountain]

As did the engineers who designed it.

The missile worked, so the engineers probably did NOT have "all the right pronouns".

[pepsi_junkie]

I was once at an interesting talk given by aviation pioneer Burt Rutan. I never heard of him before but a bunch of Air Force guys at the talk were on the edge of their seats in awe so I guess he's well respected in their circles. The gist of his talk was that they USA give-up on hypersonic tech for manned flights around 1960 in part because the commercial airlines were making enough money without the investment and in part because the military didnt really need the tech, they could already defeat the enemy defenses without it. He had some interesting curves showing the evolution of aircraft speed and it was a steep upward curve until around 1960 and it's been flat ever since. Flat for 70 years and it's not a physics limitation, it's a 'will to do it' limitation.

I wonder if all this missile tech will finally spur the aviation industry to get it done too.

[doorgunner69]

” This created much embarrassment at the USAF and considerable political fallout. “

Reminds me of the early 80’s when working for Northrop and the navy admitting they could not stop the Soviet SS-N-22 Sunburn missile. No reliable defense existed against a supersonic sea skimmer.

We were working on a target drone to simulate the Sunburn and I did a lot of reading on the navy anti missile tech of the time.