Imagine moving at six times the speed of sound.
The AP reports that the U.S. Air Force’s X-51A Waverider set a new flight record for a hypersonic scramjet burn during a flight Wednesday. The first mission saw the cruiser accelerate to speeds of Mach 6, maintaining the pace for 200 seconds.
Charlie Brink, a program manager with the Air Force Research Laboratory at Wright-Patterson Air Force Base in Ohio, said the test achieved many of its desired points.
“We equate this leap in engine technology as equivalent to the post-World War II jump from propeller-driven aircraft to jet engines,” Brink told the AP.
For video of the flight, watch Airboyd.TV’s presentation above.
