Ok, now this is cool

[Dr Grump]

Hypersonic plane could fly Sydney to London in 49 minutes

The unmanned, arrowhead-shaped aircraft, dubbed Falcon Hypersonic Technology Vehicle 2, will test new technology that would provide the US Pentagon a lightning-fast vehicle capable of delivering a military strike anywhere in the world in under an hour.

 

[uscitizen]

So now we can be faster at being the police force for the world?

 

[Mr. H.]

But, can it deliver pizzas?

 

[FA_Q2]

So now we can be faster at being the police force for the world?

In any military sense, speed is a key factor. It is a good thing that we can get there faster.

 

[Douger]

So now we can be faster at being the police force for the world?

In any military sense, speed is a key factor. It is a good thing that we can get there faster.

WTF are you talking about ? You assholes have almost as many military bases as McDonald's does poison outlets.

 

[annesmith]

Great information!

 

[uscitizen]

Yep did away with the jobs for a flight crew....

 

[FA_Q2]

Yep did away with the jobs for a flight crew....

The horror of technology. We need to go back to horse and buggy days for the sake of jobs!!! DOWN WITH TECHNOLOGY!!!!!

 

[Valerie]

US military loses contact with hypersonic aircraft

US military scientists on Thursday launched a hypersonic aircraft but lost contact with the experimental plane in its second test flight, officials said.

The unmanned Falcon Hypersonic Technology Vehicle (HTV-2), designed as a global bomber prototype capable of a mind-boggling 20 times the speed of sound, launched successfully from California aboard a Minotaur IV rocket, according to the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency.

But after the plane separated from the rocket in the upper reaches of the atmosphere for its "glide" phase, contact was lost, DARPA said.

"Range assets have lost telemetry with HTV2," DARPA wrote in a Twitter post after the launch.

The agency provided no other details about the flight or how long it had been separated from the rocket.

Last year, scientists lost contact with the HTV-2 after nine minutes in its inaugural flight.

The hypersonic plane, which is supposed to travel at Mach 20, or 13,000 miles (21,000 kilometers) per hour, could potentially provide the US military with a platform for striking targets anywhere on the planet within minutes using conventional weapons.

Such a weapon, still in development, is part of what the US Air Force has dubbed "prompt global strike" capability.

"The ultimate goal is a capability that can reach anywhere in the world in less than an hour," DARPA said on its website.


AFP: US military loses contact with hypersonic aircraft

 

[ShackledNation]

And how much money did this cost us?

 

[uscitizen]

And how much money did this cost us?

Bingo!

the other main questions are why do we need it and why was this information released NOW?
And finally is it true?

And it also seems that we now have a replacement for the shuttle to reach orbit.

 

[waltky]

Granny says at dat speed yer false teeth'll fall outta yer mouth...

Could hypersonic flight become a reality?
30 December 2011 - When Concorde was decommissioned in 2003, supersonic air travel became a thing of the past. But work has begun on a passenger aircraft that could go further and faster - flying from Europe to Australia in four hours. Will it ever become a reality?

The European Space Agency's goal is to create a hypersonic passenger plane, one that flies more than five times faster than the speed of sound and six times faster than a standard airliner. It's not the first time hypersonic flight has been attempted. In 1960, tests took place on the X-15 - half plane, half missile - which carried one pilot and flew for 90 seconds before its rocket fuel burnt out. Its creators thought it would herald a new era of high-speed civil aviation but more than 50 years later, a hypersonic passenger plane has yet to be tested or even built.

Now a team led by the European Space Agency, known as Lapcat, are working on an aircraft called the A2, which could take up where the X-15 left off. The technology involved in exceeding the speed of sound - Mach 1 - is extremely complex. "Mach number is the key," says aerodynamics expert at Imperial College London, Paul Bruce. When you go below Mach 1, so flying slower than the speed of sound, and then go above Mach 1, the physics changes, he says. "When you go to Mach 5 or 6 the laws start changing once again." At hypersonic speeds, gases and metals behave very differently. Airliner engines that work at subsonic speeds - about Mach 0.85 or 913km per hour - won't work.

A plane that will fly five times faster than the speed of sound also needs an engine that can take off at subsonic, boost to supersonic and cruise at hypersonic speeds. Another problem is heat. When air moves over the plane's chassis at high speed, friction causes its temperature to rise very quickly - to over 1,000C, so the outer shell of the plane has to be built to withstand very high temperatures. Engineers think they can overcome these problems, but it will take them decades to do so. The A2 is not expected to fly until 2040.

The ghost of Concorde also haunts the project. Concorde flew for 27 years but after an air crash investigation grounded it in 2000, its carriers British Airways and Air France realised they could generate more revenue by selling first and business class tickets on subsonic planes. Tom Otley of Business Traveller magazine believes hypersonic flight could suffer the same fate because the demand for faster flights just isn't there. "Speed isn't everything, comfort and cost play a big part. If you ask people how fast aircraft fly they wouldn't have a clue, they don't care but they do know which one is the most economical, which one is the most comfortable and which is the quietest."

More BBC News - Could hypersonic flight become a reality?

 

[Shuban]

Hypersonic plane could fly Sydney to London in 49 minutes

The unmanned, arrowhead-shaped aircraft, dubbed Falcon Hypersonic Technology Vehicle 2, will test new technology that would provide the US Pentagon a lightning-fast vehicle capable of delivering a military strike anywhere in the world in under an hour.

It's just amazing news.

 

[waltky]

Granny says, "... or ya ain't nothin' but a rattley ol' skeleton...

Skin-peeling speed doomed hypersonic glider, U.S. says
April 23rd, 2012 : A test flight of an aircraft designed to whip around the world at Mach 20 failed when the high speeds peeled the skin off the unmanned plane, Pentagon researchers conclude in a long-awaited report.

For nine minutes in August, the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency flew its Hypersonic Technology Vehicle at speeds reaching 20 times the speed of sound - fast enough to fly from New York to Los Angeles in less than 12 minutes. But then, something went wrong, and DARPA is finally explaining what happened. "The most probable cause of the HTV-2 Flight 2 premature flight termination was unexpected aeroshell degradation," the research group explained in a new statement on the test flight. Translation: The unmanned glider was streaking through the atmosphere when its outer skin started to rip off the airframe.

DARPA knew friction from the glider passing through the air so fast would cause it to heat up. It also expected "a gradual wearing away of the vehicle's skin as it reached stress tolerance limits," based on ground tests. "However, larger-than-anticipated portions of the vehicle's skin peeled from the aerostructure," the statement said. "The resulting gaps created strong, impulsive shock waves around the vehicle as it traveled nearly 13,000 miles per hour, causing the vehicle to roll abruptly."

When that "anomaly" occurred, a safety computer slowed the glider down and it splashed down in the Pacific Ocean, where it's now probably an artificial reef with a moon roof. The goal of the project is to create an aircraft that can fly anywhere in the world in under an hour to strike a target. The test plane was launched by a Minotaur IV rocket from Vandenberg Air Force Base in California, then separated from the booster and re-entered the atmosphere over the Pacific.

At Mach 20, friction from the surrounding air subjects the vehicle to temperatures of more than 3,500 degrees Fahrenheit (1,925 C). DARPA said a group of independent experts decided they couldn't have predicted the problem. "The data from second flight revealed that extrapolating from known flight regimes and relying solely on advanced thermal modeling and ground testing could not successfully predict the harsh realities of Mach 20 atmospheric flight," the agency said.

A 2010 test also ended with the craft plunging into the Pacific. In spite of the problems, DARPA said it did learn a lot from the August test. "We successfully incorporated aerodynamic knowledge gained from the first flight into the second flight," Maj. Chris Schultz, the program manager, said. And future flights will incorporate what was learned in the second test, he said.

Source

 

[RoadVirus]

Granny says, "... or ya ain't nothin' but a rattley ol' skeleton...

Skin-peeling speed doomed hypersonic glider, U.S. says
April 23rd, 2012 : A test flight of an aircraft designed to whip around the world at Mach 20 failed when the high speeds peeled the skin off the unmanned plane, Pentagon researchers conclude in a long-awaited report.
Source

Back to the ole drawing board!