NASA Scramjet Preparing For Run To Mach 10
I missed posting about this one but this is some fascinating stuff. NASA’s X-43A scramjet test aircraft will attempt to hit Mach 10 (7200 mph or 11587.3 Kilometers/hour) in a test flight over the Pacific Ocean. Just to give you a reference most of us can relate to, that speed would take you from Washington, DC to San Francisco in 20 minutes.
| :::::::: | Next week, NASA plans to break the aircraft speed record for the second time in 7 1/2 months by flying its rocket-assisted X-43A scramjet craft 110,000 feet above the Pacific Ocean at speeds close to Mach 10 — about 7,200 mph, or 10 times the speed of sound.
The flight will last perhaps 10 seconds and end with the pilotless aircraft plunging to a watery grave 850 miles off the California coast. But even if the X-43A doesn’t set the record, it has already proved that the 40-year-old dream of “hypersonic” flight — using air-breathing engines to reach speeds above Mach 5 (3,800 mph) — has become reality. |
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For obvious reasons, there won’t be any “chase planes” covering this with cameras but there’s supposed to be on-board cameras and tracking stations. Military buffs can have fun with this thought: at full speeds, this bird will outrun a Sidewinder missile in level flight by a differential of 1 Mach number faster than the SR-71 Blackbird’s top speed. The shape of things to come!
