BBC Focus Magazine

[Shadowwolf]

Perhaps Han Solo said it best in Star Wars when, describing his hyper-fast smuggling spaceship the Millennium Falcon, he said, "It may not look like much, but it's got it where it counts."

While the Air Force might take exception to being likened to the Falcon, in reality the platypus-nosed X-51A Waverider hypersonic flight test vehicle really doesn't look like much. But it definitely has it where it counts.

On Tuesday, the unmanned 25-foot-long vehicle will be dropped off of the wing of a converted B-52 bomber off the California coast and try to fly for 300 seconds at science fiction-like speeds of Mach 6, over 4,500 mph - fast enough to fly from New York to London in less than an hour.

http://security.blogs.cnn.com/2012/08/14/imagine-flying-from-new-york-to-london-in-under-an-hour/?hpt=hp_c3

Hypersonic eh, London to NY in an hour, sounds neat but somewhat wistful I mean it's not as if this is being developed as the replacement to Concorde, it's a weapons project first and foremost.

[MikeG]

Is this the same plane that flew so fast, it literally flew out of its skin and crashed?

[M Paul Lloyd]

I hate to burst their bubble but this has been on the drawing board for decades. Barnes Wallis was a great exponent of the principle of hypersonic transport back in the early 1960's the only problem is the atmosphere, which even at altitudes in excess of 25 kilometres is still, too thick to allow anything to travel much faster than mach3 without literally burning up.

What you have to do, and this applies to the Falcon along with all it's ancestors is to get high enough for the atmospheric friction heating to be acceptable and then you can fairly bat along. Provided you have a suitable form of propulsion that can cope with such a limited amount of oxygen..........

However, as a practical form of passenger transport it has one huge drawback, it has to get up there and back down again and that would add so much time to the overall journey that something like Concorde would beat it hands down.
What I want to see is someone building Concorde Mk2's .

As Mr.S points out the Falcon is essentially a weapon and the passenger potential is just a smoke screen I'm afraid.

[MikeG]

As Mr.S points out the Falcon is essentially a weapon and the passenger potential is just a smoke screen I'm afraid.

Ever since the first man stood upright, clutching a jawbone as a club, progress has always been measured by advances in military technologies. Almost every major invention has always had a military application which filtered down into common everyday use.

[Shadowwolf]

I'd wager that the filtering down on such will be a long time coming. Military would likely utilise the nascent tech for weapons like incredibly fast cruise missiles, such would be the easiest, most direct development on the already missile like test vehicle; probably the most useful also. They'll be a long, long time in scaling up to developing troop deploying craft and the network of forward basing they've already got is likely just as fast and cheaper.

Then there's the new dynamics such rapidly deliverable munitions might exercise on global relations, may not have time to trickle down

Anyhoo, it crashed sixteen seconds in: http://security.blogs.cnn.com/2012/08/15/air-force-hypersonic-test-fails/?hpt=hp_t2

[MikeG]

I'd wager that the filtering down on such will be a long time coming.

I'll wager that it will remain in the military domain as long as the U.S. has a monopoly on this technology. As soon as China, Russia, or whoever develop their own missiles, the U.S. will begin producing passenger jets for the general public.

[M Paul Lloyd]

To pick up on both your responses there gents I note that the f-35 vtol aircraft that is being purchased by the British government is a tecnologicaly speaking second best to the US version because the US, in their infinite wisdom, feels that the UK is a bit to risky with regard to foriegn influnces to be allowed full access to the full tech' package.
So I'm rather sceptical about this hypersonic vehicle will ever being a practical civilian project.

Although they still haven't actually made it work yet.....

Consider that the fastest rocket plane is still the X-15 and the fastest jet (air breathing) is the Lockheed A-12 both of which were designed way back in the 1950's.

If I'm honest I think we are being played along big time here.

[MikeG]

...because the US, in their infinite wisdom, feels that the UK is a bit to risky with regard to foriegn influnces to be allowed full access to the full tech' package.

No worries there. If you recall in Thunderball, James Bond manages to operate a top-secret flying platform from an American submarine. He tells the astonished Americans that he had read the English translation of the Russian manual

That may be a parody, but the truth is, nothing remains secret for long. Especially with all the resources China has thrown in to develop its teams of hackers.

[M Paul Lloyd]

Oh we know what the technology is MikeG after all we helped develope some of it, we are just not allowed to actually have all of it.

[Lateralman]

I think it may have been more successful if it had wings.

[M Paul Lloyd]

Lift and therefore wings are the least of its problems Lateral but if you are wondering the shape of the fuselage generates quite enough upward force to keep it airborne. No rather the problem was that the main motor failed to operate and so the whole thing was an unfortunate failure.

[Shadowwolf]

Don't think the motor failed, last I heard it was the departing of a control fin from the rest of it that induced an out of control flight path thus negating the chance of success and necessitating the crafts destruction.

[Lateralman]

Wouldn’t the G-force created by flying so fast kill everyone on board or would the passengers have to wear special suits?

Then again, you could turn that into an advantage and promote free face-lifts for older frequent flyers.

[Shadowwolf]

The g-force is only in the acceleration and deceleration or in altering direction whilst in motion, once it's slow enough in acceleration and deceleration g-forces will not be an issue for passengers.

Besides, currently I'd seriously doubt that any of this is being developed with carrying people in mind.

[M Paul Lloyd]

Don't think the motor failed, last I heard it was the departing of a control fin from the rest of it that induced an out of control flight path thus negating the chance of success and necessitating the crafts destruction.

My earlier source appears to have been unreliable.

But before it could activate its exotic scramjet engine, which should have taken it to Mach 6, a problem with one of its cruiser control fins caused it to lose balance and crash into the Pacific.

http://www.boston.com/news/nation/2012/ ... story.html

[MikeG]

The latest test of Boeings Waverider X-51A scramjet engine was finally successful. It flew for 3.5 minutes,achieving Mach 4.8 in just 26 seconds.

http://www.reuters.com/article/2013/05/ ... WD20130504

[M Paul Lloyd]

That's more like it, just need to extend its duration a tad.

Say by a factor of 60?