Are they going to continue this research or was that the last flight?
It was my understanding from previous articles that this is an ongoing project.
Super Secret Hypersonic Aircraft Flew Out of Its Skin
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Re: Super Secret Hypersonic Aircraft Flew Out of Its Skin
#12it did a barrel roll at 13,000 miles per hour... and corrected itself
Re: Super Secret Hypersonic Aircraft Flew Out of Its Skin
#13Re: Super Secret Hypersonic Aircraft Flew Out of Its Skin
#14For those interested, at mach 20 it seems to take 98 minutes to go around the equator (on the surface). In the nine minutes of sustained flight, it could have covered 3675km on the ground.
Re: Super Secret Hypersonic Aircraft Flew Out of Its Skin
#15Like a banana through a fence. Seriously if you've never done it - throw a banana HARD through a fence. Quite interesting. Yes I am insane.
I... would like to see a video of this.
Re: Super Secret Hypersonic Aircraft Flew Out of Its Skin
#16Are they going to continue this research or was that the last flight?
It was my understanding from previous articles that this is an ongoing project.
They should take an Fail Fast approach, why not make several test flights at 10000 and look for problems. 400 Million for the first flight seems really expensive.
Re: Super Secret Hypersonic Aircraft Flew Out of Its Skin
#17it did a barrel roll at 13,000 miles per hour... and corrected itself
It was probably a roll, not a barrel roll since the latter requires a controlled pitch input.
Re: Super Secret Hypersonic Aircraft Flew Out of Its Skin
#18Earlier quoted context omitted.
It was my understanding from previous articles that this is an ongoing project.
They should take an Fail Fast approach, why not make several test flights at 10000 and look for problems. 400 Million for the first flight seems really expensive.
They have a fair amount of experience going about it the way they do (since the X-1). It looks like it will take a while to go through all the data and figure out what material / structure changes they need to make. It also makes a couple of other countries a little antsy flying this type of beast.
Re: Super Secret Hypersonic Aircraft Flew Out of Its Skin
#19I'm not sure if it can still be described as 'super secret' if we're reading about it on the official DARPA blog.
According to this Yahoo! News article:
http://news.yahoo.com/super-secret-hypersonic-aircraft-flew-...
"While the test was very public, the details of the HTV-2's design, stability system and potential purpose remain highly classified."
Re: Super Secret Hypersonic Aircraft Flew Out of Its Skin
#20It really sounds like the only real problem was the material that covers the aircraft not being able to withstand the forces at mach 20. I wonder what the material was and if they can find something better without a lot more materials research. I love this stuff!