Air Force shatters hypersonic speed duration

A commenter to the LAT asks;

What 'aviation records' were 'shattered'?

Fourty-nine years ago, in November 1961 Bob White flew the X-15 to an altitude of 19.2 miles and a speed of 4,092 mph. Unlike the X-51, the X-15 was flown to a safe landing at Edwards AFB.

In October 1967, Pete Knight flew the X-15 to an altitude of 36.3 miles and a speed of 4,519 miles per hour.

That is over 1,000 mph FASTER than the X-51 did today.

The X-51 after flying just over three minutes was discarded into the water, The X-15s flew 199 times.

It would seem the only 'aviation record' that was 'shattered' by the X-15 is the one for Press Release Hyperbole.

The 50 year long quest for scramjet technology has (so far) failed to produce any practical and useful results.

X-15 flight 188, the one where Pete Knight flew it to 4,519 mph, was a scramject development demonstration. Joe Walker flew the X-15 to a maximum altitude of 67 miles (105.8 km), making him the only man who has flown a airplane into space and return to a landing.

Any comments from Taz, and other more knowlegable people?

 

1960s > 2000s+

SR71, X15, Saturn V, skydiving from 103k feet.

Today, they waste billions more on stuff that can't even do the same things. Now some dude at Red Bull is sky diving from 120k feet acting like nothing similar has happened before...yeah right, look 50 years ago buddy.

 

You are comparing apples to oranges. The X-15 was ROCKET powered. We already have fast rockets. The space shuttle is a rocket and it flys hundreds of miles high and goes mach 24. This is an aviation record for an AIR BREATHING engine not a rocket. The implication is now you don't have to carry a HUGE capacity of oxidizer to fly at these speeds. The implication is that you can fly at rocket like speeds with an air breathing engine burning only fuel not fuel + oxidizer.The X-51 does use a rocket to to get up to scram jet speeds so that its scram jet engine can be ignited. While the X-15 attempted to be a a very basic scram jet testing platform (to test if it was aerodynamically feasible not to push the aircraft to hypersonic speeds) flight 188 scramjet testing quickly failed and not much usable data came out of it. The X-51 actually had a scram jet push it along at hypersonic speeds for 3 minutes demonstrating that the engine was indeed feasible and not just on a missile but in a full size 26ft wingspan aircraft.

The X-15 had a pilot because there was no other way to fly it but with a pilot. This was a highly risky and dangerous operation. The test pilot had to practically write his life off when he got in it. Now we have the technology to conduct flight testing without endangering the life of a test pilot that aside from being a human being also has millions of dollars worth of training that would be lost.

 

I saw an interview with the crazy guy who is planning on doing the 120K jump. In the interview he commented on Kittinger's accomplishment and how he is looking to overtake his record. Not only that, he also said he is working closely with Kittinger and using him as an adviser. I wouldn't say he is acting like "nothing similar has happened."

 

Yup. This is a air breather. A long term objective would be to use turbines to Mach 3 then scramjet to Mach 6. Multiple air/land/sea weapon systems can be conceived with such a propulsion combination and the hypersonic low altitude materials science that is being tested. Search for Blackswift and DARPA Falcon for other proof of concept programs.

http://www.darpa.mil/tto/programs/falcon/index.html

 

??

 

Can't wait for a Mach 6 private jet!

NY to London in ... 25 minutes?

CW