![]() ![]() ![]() Rather than using turbofan blades to compress air before combustion, scramjets use the forward speed of the aircraft. The scramjet - from ‘supersonic combustion ramjet’ - only becomes operational at around Mach 5, or five times the speed of sound (more than 5000 km/h). Scramjets have required materials that could withstand the extreme heat created at such speed. Hypersonic flow physics are also difficult to analyse theoretically or simulate in computers.” “It took so long because of the extreme thermal environment encountered at hypersonic speeds and the challenges of ground testing at hypersonic speed due to high flow energy and temperature. “It took about 50 years to develop scramjet technology to the point it could be demonstrated in flight,” said Dr Kevin Bowcutt, Boeing Senior Technical Fellow and Chief Scientist of Hypersonics. The X-43A, if it were able to sustain such performance over that distance, would make the trip in around 90 minutes. ![]() ![]() The flight distance from Sydney to London is just more than 17,000 km. On 16 November 2004, the third X-43A set an astounding, new air-speed record of Mach 9.6 - 11,854 km/h - at an altitude of 33,500 m. An artist’s conception of the hypersonic X-43A craft. The second, in March 2004, was a success: the scramjet-powered X-43A flew 24 km in 11 seconds at a top speed of Mach 6.83 (8433 km/h).īut it was the third test that really showed the potential of scramjets. The first test flight, in 2001, failed when the booster rocket lost control. Then there was the booster rocket, a modified version of a Pegasus rocket, which would accelerate the X-43A after the drop launch to a speed at which its scramjet engine could operate. To test its experimental X-43A - an unmanned, single-use, scramjet-powered, hypersonic aircraft of which three were built - NASA piggybacked it on two other aircraft.įirst was the Boeing B-52 Stratofortress, which carried under its wing the other two vehicles to an altitude at which they could be ‘drop-launched’. As a concept, the hypersonic scramjet has been around since the 1960s, but engineers only now have the material to realise its potential as the future of air travel. ![]()
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