New Passenger Airplane To Fly At 3000 Miles Per Hour!!!

A lightning-quick experimental aircraft made history when it sped more than 3,000 mph above the Pacific Ocean in a test flight, reigniting decades-long efforts to develop a vehicle that could travel faster than a speeding bullet.




The X-51A, built and tested in Southern California, was powered by an air-breathing engine that has virtually no moving parts. It flew for longer than any other aircraft of its kind and traveled more than 264 miles in little more than six minutes.


"It was a full mission success," Charlie Brink, X-51A program manager for the Air Force Research Laboratory Aerospace Systems Directorate, said in a statement."I believe all we have learned from the X-51A WaveRider will serve as the bedrock for future hypersonics research and ultimately the practical application of hypersonic flight."

While supersonic flight refers to velocity that exceeds the speed of sound, hypersonic flight refers to going five times the speed of sound or more.


Aerospace engineers say that harnessing technology capable of sustaining hypersonic speeds is crucial to the next generation of missiles, military aircraft, spacecraft - and even passenger planes.

The Pentagon believes that hypersonic missiles are the best way to hit a target in an hour or less. The only vehicle that the military has in its inventory with that kind of capability is the massive, nuclear-tipped intercontinental ballistic missile. Other means of hitting a distant target, such as cruise missiles and long-range bomber planes, can take hours to reach their destination.

The Pentagon itself has funded major hypersonic technology programs over the last several decades, most notably with the X-15 rocket plane that was built by North American Aviation and flew a half-century ago.

Over the last 10 years, the Pentagon said it spent as much as $2 billion on hypersonic technologies and supporting engineering.

For now, there is no immediate successor to the X-51A program.But the Air Force will continue hypersonic research and the successes of the X-51A will likely find its way to the high-speed strike weapon program, which is currently in its early formation phase.