This was one hell of a drone. Capable of doing Mach 20. That isn't a typo... MACH 20. LA to NY in 12 minutes. 13,000 mph. Say hello (and gbye) to the Falcon HTV-2 I wonder what kinda dent that would make... even without munitions. That is just insane fast.
Link: http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2011/aug/11/fastest-ever-plane-lost-during-test-flight Lost contact after 36 minutes.
12 minute for LA to NY... Lost after 36 minutes.... that means she's around china or eastern europe... special delivery
I think the htv-2 is kind of pointless. It doesn't even have an engine. They were going to make an htv-3 that would at least go to mach 5, and maybe even higher, but that got cancelled. I think it would have been built next year and have a scramjet engine in it. After that would have happened, they might have built one that went up to mach 15+, then start commercial flights. I hope they refund this somehow. I've heard a lot of people say this was a waste of money. They are retards. There is a lot of other areas to cut spending, but this isn't one of them. I think we should skip building f-22's and f-35's and try to get practical hypersonic planes built in the next 10 years and also work on UAV fighters. We are 20 years ahead technologically in aircraft. In 20 years, if we work on this type of stuff instead of f-35's, we could be 50 years ahead. We just need to avoid the stupid wars we've gotten into since world war 2.
Something needs to be revised now that your theory brings into question what really killed Abel. Gone in a flash of light.
X-51A Waverider hypersonic test fails... Air Force's hypersonic test fails August 15th, 2012 - A hypersonic aircraft launched by the Air Force Tuesday spiraled out of control and was destroyed before it could reach its goal of speeding to 4,600 mph, Pentagon officials said Wednesday. See also: Will we be flying hypersonic jets one day? August 15th, 2012 - Who needs business class when your overseas flight will last less than an hour? Some of the first tests of such a technology happened Tuesday off the California coast as the Air Force tested its hypersonic X-51A Waverider vehicle.
Why worry about getting to Europe in an hour when it takes two hours to get to an airport and board a plane, and another two hours to pick up your luggage and stand in line at the rental car agency. Hypersonic or not, your day is pretty well shot.
If you're talking about the speed of light...it's 186,000 miles per second or 670 million miles per hour...
Lost contact on reentry? Hmm... I bet a nefarious secret organization had one of their agents disguise himself as one of the controllers of the craft and made it crash into the ocean where they plan to retrieve it later with divers. Fortunately the British agency, MI6, has their best agent on the case and he will... oh wait... this is the plot to Thunderball. Nevermind.
