US hypersonic aircraft trial date set

2012-10-25 10:45

Washington - The last of four unmanned experimental U.S. military aircraft designed to fly at six times the speed of sound is expected to be tested next year, the programme manager said on Wednesday, months after its predecessor broke up during a trial.

The third test flight of the craft, known as the Waverider or X-51A, broke apart over the Pacific Ocean seconds into a test flight in August. US Air Force officials said at the time they did not know if or when their fourth aircraft would fly.

Preliminary results from an investigation into what went wrong during the August flight indicate that a "random vibration issue" caused one of the control fins to deploy early, the X-51 programme manager at the Air Force Research Laboratory, Charlie Brink, told reporters on a conference call.




Analysts say the military has its eye on using the Waverider programme to develop missiles with non-nuclear warheads that could strike anywhere in the world within an hour.




The aircraft is known as the Waverider because it stays airborne, in part, with lift generated by the shock waves of its own flight. The Boeing's Phantom Works division performed design and assembly on the aircraft, according to the military.






The cost of the experimental aircraft has not been disclosed because many details of the programme are classified.

In 2004, Nasa reached a speed of Mach 9.6 with a jet-powered aircraft. But that vehicle, known as X-43, only flew for a few seconds and its copper-based engine was not designed to survive the flight.

Engineers have hoped to see the hypersonic X-51A travel for five minutes of powered flight. For protection from extreme heat, it uses insulation tiles, similar to those on the Nasa space shuttles, according to a 2011 military description of the project.
