Lots of Hyper hypersonic stories: Air Force gets the X-51 scramjet to Mach 5, almost. And it’s about time.
.........X-30, 1980s
Remember NASP? No, not the National Assoc. of School Psychologists, the National Archery in the Schools Program, National Association of Safety Professionals, National Assoc. of Sales Professionals, Nat’l Assoc. for Shoplifting Prevention, or nuclear autoantigenic sperm protein. Of course many of you don’t. This goes back to the Reagan administration’s X-30 program of the mid-80s, aka National Aero-Space Plane (which makes it a forced acronym unlike those other NASPs). Before it was canceled amid metallurgy and other technology – plus budget – worries it was to be a hypersonic testbed and possible prototype for a passenger-carrying “Orient Express” airplane. It was to be capable of getting people half way around the world in an hour or so at rates as high as 20,000 miles per hour – or even to fly straight to orbit with a final, pure-rocket mode taking over for its scramjet engines slung under the broad fuselage.
..... tiny X-51, 2010 (but this one flies)
I’m backing into the lede, but old memories of that hypersonically hyped program – based on concepts already well-cooked long before the X-30 project – flooded back this morning. The prompt is news that at long last the US Air Force dropped a tiny unmanned version of the same essential geometry and propulsion, the X-51a Waverider, from under an ancient B-52 carrier craft. With a boost to speed from a rocket, it lit off and zipped along under its own power at five times the speed of sound for more than three minutes – or somewhere in the 3000+ miles per hour range. That’s no Orient Express, but it is getting attention today as an important achievement: the longest supersonic combustion ramjet-powered flight in history – and yet the test fell short. The engine lost thrust early, quashing hopes of Mach 6. Even that would not have been the fastest ever – a different hypersonic craft called the X-43 went a lot faster, Mach 9.8 or something a few years ago, running on hydrogen.
Nobody seems to be talking about 20,000 mph Orient Express passenger service any more. The gas mileage would likely by horrendous anyway. But this week is definitely one for aerospace technologies of ancient heritage on full display – the shuttle Atlantic made its final flight and one of the last for the whole shuttle program after nearly 30 years of operation. Now this hypersonic WaveRider, a nifty nickname, dropped from an old buff as some call B-52s - whose early models went operational 55 years ago. And don’t forget last month’s flight of the old yet new X-37b space plane (previous post).
Stories on the achievement keep themselves mostly well within the information and angle envelope of the press release down there in Grist. See also there a fact sheet on another hypersonic program that’s still in DARPA’s far-out bin. A few stories provide a sense of the dream’s history. Hypersonic flight, to have only gotten this far along after all these years and dollars, is really really hard.
STORIES:
- Los Angeles Times – WJ Hennigan: Hypersonic aircraft shatters aviation records ; Since the 60s, Hennigan writes at the top, the Air Force has flirted with hypersonic technology. No explicit mention of NASP.
- Register (UK) Lewis Page: X-51 hypersonic scramjet test: Flameout at Mach 5? ; Some hoped for Mach 6 out of the record-setting flight. Behind his as-usual stylistic gymnastics (DARPA is a “Military crazytech agency) Page provides a strong dose of history and techy detail.
- Space.com – Tariq Malik: Scramjet sets hypersonic flight record / Test flight lasted more than 10 times longer than previous record ;
- Aviation Week – Graham Warwick: First X-51A Hypersonic Flight Deemed Success ; No hype in this best-of-class trade pub – with a readership that already knows most of the history.
- CNET News – Jonathan E. Skillings: X-51A races to hypersonic record ;
Grist for the Mill: Boeing Press Release ; USAF Press Release ; DARPA Falcon Hypersonic Technology Vehicle 2 Fact Sheet ;
- Charlie Petit
