Hypersonic X-51A Aircraft Test Flight for U.S. Air Force

Perhaps paving the way for unprecedented short air travel around the world, the Air Force is set for a test flight of the X-51A hypersonic aircraft. The currently unmanned test aircraft is capable of speeds in excess of 4500 miles per hour, or more than 6 times the speed of sound.

In the test flights, the X-51A will be carried to altitude under the wing of a U.S. Air Force B-52 bomber aircraft. From a high altitude the X-51A will be released much like an under wing air-to-air missile. After release the X-51A will fire up its scramjet engine allowing it to accelerate to hypersonic speeds.

For the military, the size and speed of the X-51 prototype makes it an ideal candidate for an unmanned surveillance drone or weapon capable of reaching target around the world in record time. Making the leap from its current state to something capable of commercial airline travel will not be easy.

Much like the when the Space Shuttle re-enters the Earth’s atmosphere at speeds more than three times that of the X-51A, friction and heat are issues. As engineers try to scale up the X-51A to something capable of manned flight, or passenger carrying capabilities, the battle with the friction and heat makes the design much more challenging. While not impossible, the expense of the aircraft development on such a scale and the resulting cost of a ticket, make the likelihood of passengers riding on anything hypersonic in the near future unlikely.