US Military Tests X-51A, Capable of Speeds up to 4,500 MPH

By on August 14, 2012 in News 19

Reverse-engineered alien technology or human ingenuity? Probably the latter. It seems the US Military is testing a new aircraft that can reach up to Mach 6. It’s first test flight will be tomorrow. From the DailyMail:

Photo: X-51A Waverider, U.S. Air Force graphic, Wikipedia (PD)

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.

Hypersonic flight is seen as the next step for aircraft.

‘Attaining sustained hypersonic flight is like going from propeller-driven aircraft to jet aircraft,’ Robert Mercier, deputy for technology in the high speed systems division at the Air Force Research Laboratory in Ohio told the New york Times..

‘Since the Wright brothers, we have examined how to make aircraft better and faster.

‘Hypersonic flight is one of those areas that is a potential frontier for aeronautics.

‘I believe we’re standing in the door waiting to go into that arena.’

Read more at the DailyMail:

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  • Will

    This sounds like a rocket-assisted drone/guided missile, ‘aircraft’ makes it sound a bit more conventional. Now they can threaten the world & not just specific regions they have airstrips in!

  • Anarchy Pony

    Alien technology? It’s just complex rocket/jet technology, not anti-gravity.

  • AngryTechHead

    What a joke of technology. There are craft from the 50′s and 60′s that were capable of so much more. It’s sad that there are people who think this is high-tech. Unless it’s anti-gravity, high voltage assisted lift systems or hybrid-aeronautics such as aerodynamic charged surfaces with microwave-generated-plasma to dramatically reduce air friction, you ain’t got anything worth mentioning…

    WTF, when are they gonna release the good shit?    

  • http://buzzcoastin.posterous.com BuzzCoastin

    the US Military is the least reliable source of information available
    followed by DailyMail
    but it’s nice to see that 60 year old technology can be passed off as new

    • Miracles

      fuckin scramjets, how do they work?

      • http://buzzcoastin.posterous.com BuzzCoastin

        scramjets don’t really work
        but they do burn a lot MIB Complex money
        keep thousands employed
        and make for the occasional useless story

        it’s hard to believe
        that anti-gravity technology is not available yet

        • CosmicAmazing

          We haven’t used up all the oil yet and anti-gravity tech doesn’t play nice with the second law of thermodynamics. That’s my guess on why it’s still “secret” and not widely used by the military or NASA. T. Townsend Brown was studying electrogravitics in the 1920′s for god sake. After that, the military industrial complex sucked him up into a whirlwind of clandestine programs that were all experimenting with anti-gravity. We have something concrete by now I can almost guarantee it. 

          We haven’t been exploited enough by the elites to have the privilege of anti-gravity or advanced energy systems yet. 

          Go back to bed, America.  

    • Calypso_1

      “60 yo technology” that was not flight-tested until the 1990’s. 
      Impeccable, sloganeering for the slight of mind.
      An old technology that gets recycled generationally
      in little books, Or Digital Errata
      Materials engineering being the key
      To unlock hyper-state transitional systems.

  • CosmicAmazing

    Oh look, another penis shaped object used to show off an old outdated technology. We have so many of these, why..? 
    In the 1960′s they had the X-15 which could go Mach 5.

    I just checked the date, it’s 2012, were OK! No one stumbled into a worm hole or anything. 

  • Thom Vane

    Odd, I just found Tony’s blog last night. You should post here more often mate.

    • Tony Morrill

       I’ll try!

  • http://twitter.com/Broken_Filter JMS

    While it is true that the X-15 went over 7200 kmh back in 1967, you’ve got to remember that it was a rocket plane and did not have an air-breathing engine.   In comparison, the NASA X-43A used an air-breathing scramjet to hit over 12100 kmh in 2004, but was unmanned.  What’s “new” about all this is the idea of creating a manned aircraft using air-breathing engines (scramjets) that’s capable of sustained hyper-sonic flight.  So far as I know that has not yet been done.

    • Miracles

      Why create a manned aircraft in this era of everyone getting wet panties over drones?

  • Miracles

    lol … and it failed.. http://www.wired.com/dangerroom/2012/08/x-51a/  … again..

    • CosmicAmazing

      That’s hilarious. 

      • Miracles

        So much for alien technology.  No wonder their shit crashes all the time.