Mach 6 Test Aircraft Set For Trials

coondoggie writes "The aspiration that jets may someday fly at over six times the speed of sound took a very real step toward reality recently, as the US Air Force said it successfully married the test aircraft, known as the X-51A WaveRider, to a B-52 in preparation for a Dec. 2 flight test. The X-51A flight tests are intended to demonstrate that the engines can achieve their desired speed without disintegrating. While the X-51 looks like a large rocket now, its applications could change the way aircraft or spaceships are designed, fly into space, support reconnaissance missions and handle long-distance flight operations. At the heart of the test is the aircraft's air-breathing hypersonic scramjet system."

Comments

Re:Titanium may well get cheaper

[WindBourne]

Actually, China is trying hard to lock up LOADS of resources all over the world, but the biggies are Rare Earth minerals as well as Uranium. This last week, they quit exports of a select group of REMs that they have control of, and others that they do not have total control of, they dropped the possible exports. At this very moment, Australia is deciding whether to sell them several of their mines. Hopefully they do not as they are REM mines and will be needed by the entire rest of the world. These minerals are concerned with making permanent magnet motors that are going into Electric Cars as well as are used in nearly all electronics.