Simviation Forums

This thing is nearly as fast as me on a motorbike

If clear skies break over southern California on Monday, a B-52 bomber will take off from Edwards air force base and head out over the Pacific.
Slung beneath its right wing will be an experimental pilotless plane designed to break records by flying at 10 times the speed of sound.
The 3.5-metre-long (12ft) prototype, known to Nasa as the X-43A, will hitch a ride on the bomber to 12,000 metres (40,000ft) before an on-board rocket takes over, boosting it to 34,000 metres. The rocket will then fall away, leaving the plane free to fly - powered by a revolutionary engine, the scramjet.
Shortly after 9.30pm GMT, the X-43A will accelerate, if all goes smoothly, to 7,000mph, before its engine switches off and it descends to plunge into the ocean some 850 miles from shore.
The test flight is the culmination of an eight-year, $250m (

If clear skies break over southern California on Monday, a B-52 bomber will take off from Edwards air force base and head out over the Pacific.
Slung beneath its right wing will be an experimental pilotless plane designed to break records by flying at 10 times the speed of sound.

The report is undated. Is this new or the same test flight that proved successful some months ago? Like most of these projects it might be fine for a military application. Despite all the publicity & claims to the contrary I see no practical civil use for it.

.... Like most of these projects it might be fine for a military application. Despite all the publicity & claims to the contrary I see no practical civil use for it.

...unless you want your eye-balls permantly re-located to the back of your skull.... ...!

LOL... ...!

Cheers all... ...!

Paul....just having a 2 MPH walk up to the top shops for a bottle of milk..... ...!

This report came out today in the Guardian Online...

Well, if there are cruise ships on the pacific, they will hear quite a sonic boom....

... or 10......  ;D

that engine dosn't sond too different from a RAM-jet or have I missed something  ::)

Craig  8)

This report came out today in the Guardian Online...

Explains a lot...

3 Words - Damn thats fast.

Thats exactly (almost) what it is. it is actually a SCRAMjet. Go ahead and look up scramjet, neat.

here is the NASA link, they fly it on the 15th.

http://www.nasa.gov/missions/research/x43-main.html

The X-43A