It may look like a vehicle the Thunderbirds would travel in, but in fact this experimental aircraft could be the future of long haul flights. It uses a revolutionary ‘scramjet’ engine that allows it to travel at hypersonic speeds. Tomorrow, it will be dropped from a B52 bomber in its latest test.
** The craft, called the X-51A Waverider, is currently being prepared at Edwards Air Force Base in the Mojave Desert. Tomorrow, it will take part in a key test.
Attached to a B-52 bomber’s wing, it will be taken from Edwards to about 50,000 feet over the Pacific Ocean near Point Mugu.
*there’ it will be dropped and the engines fired. The entire mission will last just 300 seconds, but will be the longest the craft has ever flown for. *
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Pretty impressive. Extra points to the author for mentioning the Thunderbirds.
On a side note, I never fail to be impresed with b-52’s. Damn.
I’m doubtful we’ll see supersonic commercial flight again. Between the sonic boom, speeding up at takeoff, and slowing for landing, there just isn’t a huge application for it. Unless you can get basically the same cost as a normal carrier. Cool technology though for other applications.
Unless you can get basically the same cost as a normal carrier.
Wouldn’t that be the goal though? The applications I’ve heard for commercial rely on much higher altitude flying thereby lowering the fuel costs and potential for noise issues. The scenarios I’ve seen are take off from NY hit 70K+ feet and off to Tokyo/China. Back down and on the ground in a couple hours. Flights to Tokyo and Beijing now take shorter times than a conventional flight from NY to LA. Obviously price would have to be somewhat competitive.
Hey, Lockheed had this covered for spy planes 40 years ago with their D21 drone! Launched off an SR71 and later B52. Never caught on because of a few accidents (including a downed SR71). They’d launch it supersonic off an SR71, ramjets kicked in and boosted it further. It would fly over enemy territory unassisted, snap photos, then do a U-turn and drop the film into the ocean to get picked up by the Navy. All that before the internet, GPS, or drones being standard. Pretty cool.
Because everytime someone says something isn’t practical, at somepoint it turns into something practical.
Out of all things the airplane exemplifies this perfectly. In less than 100 years we went from flying 120 feet to flying across the Atlantic in a passenger plane going supersonic. There is no reason that this can’t be made into a commercial application at somepoint besides that we dont know how yet.
Because everytime someone says something isn’t practical, at somepoint it turns into something practical.
Out of all things the airplane exemplifies this perfectly. In less than 100 years we went from flying 120 feet to flying across the Atlantic in a passenger plane going supersonic. There is no reason that this can’t be made into a commercial application at somepoint besides that we dont know how yet.
Now we talk money issues… for transport why are we not building a series of maglev trains here like they are in china/germany that hit 300mph -
there is less distance to cover on a straight path rather than arching up over the earth
no the time delay to de-accelerate the craft is another issue.
Many unknowns during flight that can affect performance, path
no worries of fuel
Many great things have been invented but it is what is practical that should be more invested to.
Now we talk money issues… for transport why are we not building a series of maglev trains here like they are in china/germany that hit 300mph -
First it would be really expensive and likely more impossible to build a mag train from NY to Tokyo than to build a landing strip in NY and one in Tokyo. Second if you’re talking intercontinental flights what do you think would be cheaper, a rail, including purchasing all the land, all the materials and building, maintaining and controlling a rail from NY to LA, or again, two landing strips?
Rail works GREAT for areas that are very congested or where major cities are under a certain distance apart. However after that distance they become economically unfeasible compared to air travel.
Many great things have been invented but it is what is practical that should be more invested to.
In a free market only that which IS practical succeeds and becomes successful and thus gets invested into, practical of course is a subjective word and will depend on who you talk to
First it would be really expensive and likely more impossible to build a mag train from NY to Tokyo than to build a landing strip in NY and one in Tokyo. Second if you’re talking intercontinental flights what do you think would be cheaper, a rail, including purchasing all the land, all the materials and building, maintaining and controlling a rail from NY to LA, or again, two landing strips?
Rail works GREAT for areas that are very congested or where major cities are under a certain distance apart. However after that distance they become economically unfeasible compared to air travel.
Factor in the fuel and how we are running out of it while maglev can be powered by nuclear mini generators, Also planes have limitations on weight per fuel load. Russia has made the first step towards intercontinental rail: http://inhabitat.com/russia-green-lights-65-billion-siberia-alaska-rail-and-tunnel-to-bridge-the-bering-strait/ …maybe maglev isnt the way to go as the number of motors needed is costly, and the old 2 rail system wins, as the sncf tgv guys have
wiki:
The world speed record for conventional high-speed rail is held by the V150, a specially configured and heavily-modified version of Alstom’s TGV which clocked 574.8 km/h (357.2 mph) on a test run. The world speed record for Maglev is held by the Japanese experimental MLX01: 581 km/h (361 mph).
**Rail works GREAT for areas that are very congested or where major cities are under a certain distance apart. However after that distance they become economically unfeasible compared to air travel. **
I dunno, Matt … how are you gonna get all this stuff on a plane???
I dunno, Matt … how are you gonna get all this stuff on a plane???
You don’t, but you also don’t ship that on a 300MPH bullet train either :-)** **The cost to build that kind of rail, most of which is already existing anyway, is WAY less than the cost for a 300MPH bullet train that needs far closer specifications, above grade build etc etc.
I think we should and will start to lean back towards train cargo transport as fuel costs go up, even away from trucking. I don’t think transporting people will get to the point of wanting to spend more time on a train until many years after that and until costs are MUCH higher than they are now.
Factor in the fuel and how we are running out of it while maglev can be powered by nuclear mini generators,
Until such time that fuel costs are MUCH higher building trains to transport people makes no economical sense after a certain distance.
You’re looking at costs of 30-60M dollars per mile of HSR. That’s 75B dollars on the low side JUST to build the rails, no stations. This is the rails to get from point A to Point B. By comparison an airport can be built for 10B-20B and this handles incoming and out going to many destinations and includes the stations on both ends. Figure another 5B for stations on each end of the HSR rail and you’re looking at a price tag of a minimum of 85B compared to 20B.
Now look at the actual ability of that rail. How much traffic can you stuff on that single line versus planes in the sky? Again I would say the advantage goes to planes.
As I said the closer together the stations are the better a train looks. This is why trains are a much better fit in the EU, because they are far more congested. My simple numbers here you run into a break even point at ~300 miles distance.
Now clearly if we hit a point were we can no longer manufacture airline fuel we have no choice. Until that time HSR just is not very economical for long distance travel in comparison to planes and almost entirely due to build cost. This is the same argument AGAINST many electric cars. Paying 40K for a car that does the same thing as a 20K car is not economically feasible because 20K buys a WHOLE lot of gas.
Who are you calling Air Farce? We got nukes. And stealth. Stealth nukes. Can’t touch this.
This is a third failure out of three. It’s no surprise. They are attempting cutting edge science and engineering here. With every test they obtain more data and learn more. It’s the nature of flight testing. Jet planes have crashed countless times at Muroc (Edwards) in the 40s through 60s. And today it’s the most reliable way to travel.
Like electric vehicles that are prone to burst into fireballs we should immediately abandon this technology and never speak of it again. The old fashioned planes we have work just fine.
