"We are about to fly at Mach 10"

[Dinger]

Yeah, I remember a couple of good ones in the rhine valley.  You'd be sitting in a room them  wham everything would shake for a second.


Actually, the sonic boom attenuates the faster you go; the noise from a hypersonic  jet would be quite modest -- in fact, that's one of the advantages of a HST.

Before we get 30 minute flights to iraq though, we'll get cruise missiles that don't need to be forward deployed.

[SunTracker]

Oh lord, if you thought the bill for space shuttle launches were high, imagine what it would be for sending troops to iraq on a hypersonic transport.

You do know that Osama Bin Ladens military plan is to bankrupt the U.S., right?

[slimm50]

Originally posted by Gunslinger
the last time the x43 flew I got to see "balls 8" (name for the B-52 for its tail number 008) do its preflight.  Weird though I havnt heard a sonic boom in weeks?

EDIT:  The other day around sunset I saw an F16 take off at full burner from my back porch.  THAT was cool!

When I was kid growing up in Birmingham, AL I used to sit in my front yard in the summer, across the highway from the south end of the airport, and watch the national guard Phantoms taking off in the evenings, two at a time, side-by-side (staggered slightly), afterburners notched. Seems like the flames out the bellybutton end were 20' long. The sound was unbelievable!

[rpm]

Originally posted by SunTracker
Oh lord, if you thought the bill for space shuttle launches were high, imagine what it would be for sending troops to iraq on a hypersonic transport.

You do know that Osama Bin Ladens military plan is to bankrupt the U.S., right?

Sun, the costs would be much less than you think. The Hyper-X program was to develop a transport capable of taking off with conventional jet engines, climb to alt and achive speed for the scramjets to ignite. A short run of the scramjets then a glide down and landing with the conventional jet. Reagan initally proposed the idea for civilian transport, I just used Iraq as an example because the military would obviously use the technology first.

[Furious]

If it's not manned, then really, who cares?

[Chairboy]

Good point, Furious.  In fact, we should probably shelve all our aerospace development programs worldwide.  After all, if some test pilot isn't sitting in the seat, then there's no point in pursuing the technology.  It either works immediately at full capacity, or it's not worth trying.

I bet the Wright brothers skipped model gliders too, and Montgolfier was just ASSUMING that hot air would lift his contraption into the sky.

Technology development is dumb.  I think I'll go watch some Jerry Springer, wanna join me?

[Furious]

For how long have scramjets been in development?  And we don't have a mannable version (unclassified of course) yet?

I am sorry it bothers you, but until you can put a man in it I don't care how fast it goes.  And I certainly wouldn't call it a "world record".

[Chairboy]

Actually...  if not for budget constraints, there would have been a manned scramjet flight in the 1960s.  

One of the X-15s was modified to carry a dummy scramjet and one of the last missions involved flying with it.  The next planned step was to put a scramjet test unit (under development at the time) in place of the dummy and modify the X-15 to carry a small hydrogen tank to fuel it.  As you may or may not know, a scramjet cannot be ignited except at hypersonic speeds with current technology.

The X-15 project was instead cancelled, and scramjet research was put on the back burners for a few decades.  The only research they could do was with tiny hypersonic wind tunnels that could produce a couple seconds of hypersonic flow (at best).  

It took a while, but funding finally came through to do a flying test, and the X-43 project came about as a result.  The thing was, the amount of money was pretty insignificant in comparison to what would be needed for a manned test aircraft.

At this stage of the technology and with our current sensors, etc, an unmanned hypersonic test aircraft is perfectly acceptable and pretty exciting.  I understand that there are some people who don't care about a technology until it's served to them with a Radio Shack logo or attached to a heated tunnel so they can drink their Starbucks in comfort while they board.  For you, this might be a non-story.

But for people who appreciate the hard work that scientists and engineers do every day behind the scenes, 99.9999% of whom will never be known publically for their contributions, this is exciting stuff.  I think it's a fascinating technology with interesting applications, and if their testing validates the models they've been using, there might be a Boeing aircraft you can lounge aboard for an hour while blasting across the pacific some day.  

Until then, pay no attention to the men behind the curtain.  It takes vision to look to the future, but you can live a fine and comfortable life just staring at your shoes.  It's nothing to be ashamed of.

[Reschke]

Originally posted by slimm50
When I was kid growing up in Birmingham, AL I used to sit in my front yard in the summer, across the highway from the south end of the airport, and watch the national guard Phantoms taking off in the evenings, two at a time, side-by-side (staggered slightly), afterburners notched. Seems like the flames out the bellybutton end were 20' long. The sound was unbelievable!

Used to hear them all the time a couple of hours south of you near Selma, AL. In fact F-4's would do test runs for photo recon over that area for its terrain similarities to parts of Western Europe (or so I have been told by a former F-4 jockey). They would be tree top height and you get this BOOOOOM!!!!! Right on top of your house and all you knew was if it was war you were toasted by then with the napalm and cluster bombs.

[SunTracker]

One step at a time chairboy.  I don't even know a single person who has flown on a SST, and that technology is 40 years old.  And your talking about mach 10....

[MarkVZ]

The SST is great justification for this research.  The average businessman could not afford to fly on the Concorde.  Operating expenses were very high,  and these costs were handed down to the consumer in ticket prices that only the wealthy could justify.   They are looking at ways of making supersonic travel more affordable.  It's a necessary step that needs to be taken.  To say that SST research should be halted due to the economic failure of the Concorde is foolish.    They are trying to overcome the high operating costs which eventually brought down the Concorde.

[SunTracker]

So they are trying to reduce operating costs by flying at mach 10?

[Chairboy]

They are trying to reduce operating costs by maturing powerplant technology.

New/Cheap/Safe.  You can pick any two.

[Furious]

Chairboy,

I think you've missed my point, or I stated it poorly.  Most likely the latter.

I appreciate the efforts of the those folks diligently working behind the scenes of these new technologies.  I have, however, grown weary of the unfulfilled promises.  

I understand that this frustration should not be bourn by the scientists themselves, but by the bureaucracy that cuts their funding.

[rpm]

LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - NASA officials on Monday postponed for a day the launch of an unmanned experimental jet that would have attempted to shoot out across the Pacific Ocean at a record speed of more than 7,000 mph (11,265 kph) after an apparent glitch with its electronics systems.
The X-43A aircraft was to have been carried aloft by a larger jet from Edwards Air Force Base north of Los Angeles and set on its way by a booster rocket over the Pacific Ocean.

NASA officials said they would try again to launch the craft some time on Tuesday. Troubleshooting on the electronics delayed the flight to the point where it risked missing its narrow launch window for the day, officials said.

"All indications are now that we should be go for tomorrow," said Griff Corpening, X-43A chief engineer, on a NASA Television broadcast.

The test flight will be the final of three planned launches for the X-43A jet and its supersonic "scramjet" engine. A scramjet takes in oxygen from the air for combustion rather than carrying liquid oxygen in a tank like a conventional rocket.

Scramjet technology, NASA has said, could allow cheaper and safer flights into the upper atmosphere and into orbit around the Earth, with smaller and lighter craft.

NASA plans for the X-43A flight to reach speeds of Mach 10, or about 7,000 mph, which the agency said would be a world record for a jet-powered aircraft.

The $230 million program got off to a rough start when in June 2001 the first X-43A and its booster rocket had to be destroyed in mid-air by ground controllers. But the second attempt, in March of this year, successfully reached Mach 7.

After a few seconds of jet operation, the final X-43A will enter into a glide, traveling about 850 miles before splashing down into the ocean, NASA said. The agency has no plans to recover the craft, which has been standard procedure with the scramjet tests.

I wonder if they will show it on NASA-TV? I've got it on Dish Network and it would be ubercool to watch.