X-51 onboard B-52 Bomber LOS ANGELES — An unmanned experimental aircraft failed during an attempt to fly at six times the speed of soun...
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| X-51 onboard B-52 Bomber |
LOS ANGELES — An unmanned experimental aircraft failed during an attempt to fly at six times the speed of sound in the latest setback for hypersonic flight.
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| X-51 |
But the Air Force said Wednesday that a faulty control fin prevented it from starting its exotic scramjet engine and it was lost.
“It is unfortunate that a problem with this subsystem caused a termination before we could light the scramjet engine,” Charlie Brink of the Air Force Research Laboratory at the Wright-Patterson Air Force Base in Ohio, said in a statement.
The Waverider successfully detached from the B-52 and fired the rocket booster as planned. Then its scramjet engine was supposed to take over as it attempted to climb to Mach 6. But that never happened. Fifteen seconds after separating from the rocket booster, the Waverider lost control, preventing a test of the s
“All our data showed we had created the right conditions for engine ignition and we were very hopeful to meet our test objectives,” Brink said.
The Pentagon has been testing hypersonic technologies in hopes of delivering strikes around the globe within minutes.
A control fin that had functioned correctly on two previous flights malfunctioned on the Aug. 14 third flight of the U.S. Air Force Research Laboratory’s (AFRL) Boeing X-51A Waverider, causing the hypersonic demonstrator to lose control before its scramjet engine could be ignited.
It was the latest failure for the waverider program. A test flight last year ended prematurely with an X-15A trying to restart its engine until it plunged into the Pacific Ocean.During the first flight of an X-51A in 2010, it reached near five times the speed of sound for three minutes.
The Boeing X-51 (also known as X-51 WaveRider) is an unmanned scramjet demonstration aircraft for hypersonic (Mach 6, approximately 4,000 miles per hour (6,400 km/h) at altitude) flight testing. It successfully completed its first free-flight on 26 May 2010 and also achieved the longest duration flight at speeds over Mach 5.
The X-51 is named "WaveRider" because it uses its shockwaves to add lift. The program is run as a cooperative effort of the United States Air Force, DARPA, NASA, Boeing, and Pratt & Whitney Rocketdyne. The program is managed by the Propulsion Directorate within the United States Air Force Research Laboratory (AFRL).The X-51 had its first captive flight attached to a B-52 in December 2009.
