WaveRider

[A Life Aloft]

2 June 2015

Air Force Chief Scientist Mica Endsley told Military.com that the Air Force and DARPA, the Pentagon's research entity, plan to have a new and improved hypersonic air vehicle by 2023.

The new air vehicle could be used to transport sensors, equipment or weaponry in the future, depending upon how the technology develops.

The Air Force said Friday the X-51A WaveRider flew for more than three minutes under power from its exotic scramjet engine and hit a speed of Mach 5.1 last year.

The test marked the fourth and final flight of an X-51A by the Air Force, which has spent $300 million studying scramjet technology that it hopes can be used to deliver strikes around the globe within minutes.

The Advanced Hypersonic Weapon is part of a program to create a missile that will destroy targets anywhere on Earth within hours - travelling at speeds in excess of 3,500 miles-an-hour or Mach 5.

It is being created alongside other demonstration projects being developed by DARPA, including the Hypersonic Air-breathing Weapon Concept and the Tactical Boost Glide, both of which have test flights scheduled for 2018 or 2019.

'We are the Air Force. What do we want to do with this technology? We want to weaponize it,' Ryan Helbach, an official with the Air Force Research Laboratory, said last week during an exhibition at the Pentagon to showcase various military research projects.

'The follow-on program to this is the High Speed Strike Weapon effort. It's taking a lot of the lessons learned and the technology and moving to a weapons acquisition.'

The technology is also the subject of an arms race between the US, Russia and China.

'Certainly, the U.S. is not the only country involved in developing hypersonic weapons,'

Mica Endsley, the Air Force's chief scientist, said in a recent interview with Military.com

'They (China) are showing a lot of capability in this area. The advantage of hypersonics is not just that something goes very fast but that it can go great distances at those speeds.'

The sleek, missile-shaped WaveRider was released from a B-52 bomber 50,000 feet above the Pacific and was initially accelerated by a rocket before the scramjet kicked in.

It reached Mach 4.8 in less than half a minute powered by a solid rocket booster. After separating from the booster, the scramjet engine was ignited, accelerating the aircraft to Mach 5.1 at 60,000 feet.

An artist's impression of a hypersonic missile being tested - and the same technology could also revolutionize air travel.

The flight ended with a planned plunge into the ocean.

The WaveRider traveled more than 230 miles in six minutes, making it the longest hypersonic flight of its kind. Engineers gathered data before it splashed down.

Darryl Davis, president of Boeing Phantom Works, which built the WaveRider, called the test 'a historic achievement that has been years in the making.'

'This test proves the technology has matured to the point that it opens the door to practical applications,' Davis said in a statement.

While the Air Force did not have immediate plans for a successor to the X-51A, it said it will continue hypersonic flight research.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencet...nic-planes-fly-New-York-London-HOUR-2023.html

 

[A Life Aloft]

May 19, 2015

The nine-year, $300 million X-51 program was designed to demonstrate that the military could build a scramjet capable of accelerating, ingesting hydrocarbon fuel, and actively cooling in flight, said Ryan Helbach, an official with the Air Force Research Laboratory, last week during an exhibition at the Pentagon to showcase various military research projects. Helbach said. Unlike a traditional engine, a scramjet, or supersonic combusting ramjet, has very few moving parts and relies on an air-breathing propulsion system to travel faster than the speed of sound.

But it needs a kick, like a boost from a rocket, to get there. So the WaveRider was first propelled by a solid rocket booster, a surface-to-surface missile called the MGM-140 Army Tactical Missile System, to about Mach 4.5, then separated and activated its scramjet engine built by Aerojet Rocketdyne. (A weaponized version of the vehicle would use another missile, not a ground system design.)

"There are no moving parts in the flow path, so that means there are no compressor blades to suck in the air, so we need something to get us up to above Mach 4 in order to get the compression into the engine," said Helbach.


The Air Force program, which had a couple of failed tests, came several years after a similar NASA effort called the X-43, which in 2004 shattered speed records when it flew at nearly Mach 9.7, or about 6,600 miles per hour, for 10 seconds. But the engine couldn't withstand the temperatures involved.

"The engine basically melted because it got so hot," Helbach said. "They didn't actively cool it. So for our program, we actively cooled the engine, which means that along the outside of the engine, we cycled the fuel around it to suck out the heat from the engine, heat up that fuel, and then inject it into the combustor for the scramjet engine."

The X-51 was designed to start its engine using ethylene and transition to a hydrocarbon fuel called JP-7 -- the same type of endothermic fuel employed by the SR-71 Blackbird spy plane.

"It basically means you can dump a lot of heat into that fuel," Helbach said. "When you crack the fuel, it actually makes it more combustible. It increases the amount of combustion you can create from the fuel."

For the follow-on weapons program, the Air Force has teamed with the Pentagon's research arm, the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, to shrink the technology into a hypersonic weapon that could fit on most of the bomber fleet, according to Kenneth Davidson, manager of the hypersonic materials development at the Air Force Research Laboratory.

"If you look at the X-51, the size is slightly too big to put it on our current bombers," he said. "It was made as a demonstrator. There's no weapon in it. There are no sensors on board for controlling the guidance. So we're looking at making it more durable, getting the guidance control developed so that it can become a weapon system, developing the ordnance."

Carrying a small, conventional warhead, a hypersonic weapon could be used as a stand-off missile, so the military could strike targets at a safe distance without putting pilots and aircraft at risk.

"You could then attack defensive targets, those heavily defended or the time-critical targets in a very timely manner -- if it's a moving target, before it can move," Davidson said. "And then ultimately, these would have a sensor so that they can track a moved target -- not necessarily something that is moving, but if the target moves or it gets into the area, they can see the target and hit it very, very accurately."

The High Speed Strike Weapon is affiliated with other demonstration projects being developed by DARPA, including the Hypersonic Air-breathing Weapon Concept and the Tactical Boost Glide, both of which have test flights scheduled for 2018 or 2019.

"Our goal is to make sure the Air Force has the knowledge in 2020 or over the next five years to be able to make acquisition decisions using this technology," Davidson said. "Our goal is to provide a capability to stand off, launch these vehicles off the aircraft to hit time-critical dependent targets ... And ultimately from a manufacturing standpoint, it's got to be affordable."

http://www.military.com/daily-news/...ting-closer-to-testing-hypersonic-weapon.html

 

[NewYorkophile]

the same technology could also revolutionize air travel.

...not sure the public would enjoy the rocket-assisted boost to Mach 4, the mandatory space-suit apparel, or having a window so hot at Mach 6 it melts your hand.

 

[knot4u]

...not sure the public would enjoy the rocket-assisted boost to Mach 4, the mandatory space-suit apparel, or having a window so hot at Mach 6 it melts your hand.

Windows?

 

[mshunter]

...not sure the public would enjoy the rocket-assisted boost to Mach 4, the mandatory space-suit apparel, or having a window so hot at Mach 6 it melts your hand.

Pretty sure they'd have all of that considered if it were to become commercially viable.

 

[NewYorkophile]

Pretty sure they'd have all of that considered if it were to become commercially viable.

Dollars to doughnuts says that orbital transportation will be the preferred route- after all, no need to go Mach 6 in the atmosphere when you can go LA to France in under an hour via spaceplane.

 

[mshunter]

Dollars to doughnuts says that orbital transportation will be the preferred route- after all, no need to go Mach 6 in the atmosphere when you can go LA to France in under an hour via spaceplane.

Mmmm, doughnuts.

 

[derg]

Neat.

But...

In my childhood we were going back and forth to the moon.

 

[juxtapilot]

Neat.

But...

In my childhood we were going back and forth to the moon.

Yea on a set down in Arizona.

 

[derg]

Yea on a set down in Arizona.

Bitcoins and gold.

 

[Pilot Fighter]

Neat.

But...

In my childhood we were going back and forth to the moon.

...and folks dressed up to fly.

 

[derg]

...and folks dressed up to fly.

And "rewind" and "fast forward" actually meant something!

 

[Pilot Fighter]

And "rewind" and "fast forward" actually meant something!

Or with 8-track you could fast forward or change tracks and end up in the middle of another song. As a result, it seemed like some 8-tracks only had three songs.

And white folks beat their kids as much as black folks.

 

[derg]

Or with 8-track you could fast forward or change tracks and end up in the middle of another song. As a result, it seemed like some 8-tracks only had three songs.

And white folks beat their kids as much as black folks.

Part 1: Yup!

Part 2: WAT?!

 

[Toobdrvr]

 

[A Life Aloft]

 

[gne in prog]

...not sure the public would enjoy the rocket-assisted boost to Mach 4 fee, the mandatory space-suit apparel fee, or having a window so hot at Mach 6 it melts your hand fee.

Ftfy, or whatever.

 

[milleR]

And not even two pages yet. Nice work.

 

[Pilot Fighter]

Part 1: Yup!

Part 2: WAT?!

Not a scientific survey but it seems that spanking is alive and well in the black community. Am I wrong? I guess I should have said spank instead of beat. My point was that spanking has been replaced by the time-out for many. I'm often wrong but only occasionally racist. I only have a couple black friends but I shop at Walmart.

 

[BravoHotel]

How do you go from scram jets to spanking kids at Walmart?