[ExI] scramjet

[Damien Broderick]

http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,2817,2364269,00.asp

The United States Air Force's X-51A Waverider, an experimental aircraft, 
has set a new record for hypersonic flight: Mach 6.

The craft flew at six times the speed of sound for three minutes and 20 
seconds, according to the Associated Press. A B-52 Stratofortress 
released the X-51A Waverider off the southern California coast on 
Wednesday, whereupon the craft's scramjet engine accelerated it to Mach 6.

"We are ecstatic to have accomplished many of the X-51A test points 
during its first hypersonic mission," said Charlie Brink, an X-51A 
program manager with the Air Force Research Laboratory at 
Wright-Patterson Air Force Base, Ohio, in the article. "We equate this 
leap in engine technology as equivalent to the post-World War II jump 
from propeller-driven aircraft to jet engines."

The previous record for a hypersonic scramjet burn was just 12 seconds, 
according to the report.