Right. I’ve never seen a missile travel at mach 5-10 or anything close. Are ramjets a real thing or just experimental.
In other words are hypersonic missiles real or just a new tech fantasy that everybody uses? Like Reagan did with Star Wars.
The one requirement is they must operate within the atmosphere.
The SR-71 Blackbird, the ONLY jet in the world (and the fastest) to use RamJet Engines.
Officially, it went MACH 3. Unofficially, it went MACH 5.
It made it from New York to London in less than 2 hours.
If I remember right, it was blueprint (on the table) around 1956-1957.
Prototype (A-12, smaller version of the RS-71, which because of a typo, became the SR-71) around 1960, and I think production started around 1962-1964.
NO manned jet anywhere in the world has been able to get close to its power (powered by the 2 ramjets).
At full speed, the cones at the front of the engine are fully extended, meaning very little air getting into the engine, but at that speed, the compression is so great, that the SR-71 is only using 30% of its fuel (Liquid Oxygen Gel).
That’s what I remember, anyway.
Every missile that takes something into orbit travels at the equivalent of about Mach 25.
You’re thinking of Fractional Orbital Bombing System, FOBS which is real and dangerous. This is a very fast theater missile.