X-51A / X-51 Waverider Test Flight Taxi And Takeoff

B-52 aircraft that deploys the X-51 taxiing the runway prior to its takeoff and the takeoff of the aircraft.
Courtesy: United States Air Force
EDWARDS AIR FORCE BASE, Calif (AFNS) -- An X-51A Waverider flight-test vehicle successfully made the longest supersonic combustion ramjet-powered hypersonic flight May 26 off the southern California Pacific coast.

The more than 200 second burn by the X-51's Pratt & Whitney Rocketdyne-built air breathing scramjet engine accelerated the vehicle to Mach 6. The previous longest scramjet burn in a flight test was 12 seconds in a NASA X-43.

Air Force officials called the test, the first of four planned, an unqualified success. The flight is considered the first use of a practical hydrocarbon fueled scramjet in flight.

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

The X-51 launched at about 10 a.m. from here, carried under the left wing of an Air Force Flight Test Center B-52 Stratofortress. Then, flying at 50,000 feet over the Point Mugu Naval Air Warfare Center Sea Range, it was released. Four seconds later an Army Tactical Missile solid rocket booster accelerated the X-51 to about Mach 4.8 mach before it and a connecting interstage were jettisoned.
The launch and separation were normal, Mr. Brink said.

Four X-51A cruisers have been built for the Air Force and the (Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency) by industry partners Pratt & Whitney Rocketdyne and Boeing.
Air Force officials intend to fly the three remaining X-51A flight test vehicles this fall, Mr. Brink said.
Air Force officials currently plan to fly each on virtually identical flight profiles, building knowledge from each successive flight.

Hypersonic flight, normally defined as beginning at Mach 5, five times speed of sound, presents unique technical challenges with heat and pressure, which make conventional turbine engines impractical. Program officials said producing thrust with a scramjet has been compared to lighting a match in a hurricane and keeping it burning.

"This first flight was the culmination of a six-year effort by a small, but very talented AFRL, DARPA and industry development team," Mr. Brink said. "Now we will go back and really scrutinize our data. No test is perfect, and I'm sure we will find anomalies that we will need to address before the next flight. But anyone will tell you that we learn just as much, if not more, when we encounter a glitch."

Mr. Brink noted while development of the X-51A's engine and the test program are complex, controlling costs has been a key objective. The team has incorporated or adapted existing proven technologies and elected from the outset not to build recovery systems in the flight test vehicles, in an effort to control costs and focus funding on the vehicle's fuel-cooled scramjet engine.

Mr. Brink said he believes the X-51A program will provide knowledge required to develop the game changing technologies needed for future access to space and hypersonic weapon applications.

Category:

Science & Technology

Tags:

• Mach
• Boeing
• X-51
• Waverider
• Makes
• Historic
• Hypersonic
• Flight
• scramjet
• b-52
• Pratt
• Whitney
• Rocketdyne
• x-51a
• airboyd
• airboyd.tv
• #airboydtv
• yt:quality=high

[jonbocz]

The black "smoke" that you see is carbon particles--like the black exhaust of diesel trucks. It falls to the ground and only slowly oxidizes to CO2 by the action of sunlight and atmospheric oxygen. It's nothing like the CO2 produced by burning, in engines or furnaces. Same chemical, but different result. A single tree uses more CO2 than that produced by oxidizing carbon--it takes a forest to use the products of even a small commercial furnace. And we're cutting the forests down....

[F15Eaglejet1]

FutureVideos2013 I don't know if you live anywhere around an Air Force Base, but if you do, you should check out the activity when B-52's are doing the work. They actually do take off with the back side coming off the ground first, and when they accelerate through the air, they fly with a nose-down attitude!! Their wings also move up and down when the plane is in flight!! Commonly known as "flapping"

[ljubosam]

Who the f**k drives this?!!! OMG!

[19Danniel]

@jonbocz Whos smart YOU ARE lol

[Fluvance]

Hello 240p. You're looking nice today!

[markukkerd]

@ShoNuffRW I'm going to get one of those big airplanes for my birthday!!! 2:44

[VMATT500C]

Carbon Monoxide not dioxide is lethal.

[ShoNuffRW]

BIG fucker....

[anthilation00dozey]

2:12 - 4:42

My favourite moment..........

[ep1k84]

Aera 51?

[humphreysdj]

@ mrk- for more lift

[whatsup1877]

One big MF.....