The Boeing X-51A WaveRider: Unheard of Hypersonic Flight

Boeing-X-51A-WaveRider-Hypersonic

This video talks about scramjet engine and its capability of travelling in hypersonic speed (meaning greater than Mach 5). Joseph Vogel, the Director of Hypersonics of Boeing Defense, Space & Security talks about X-51A WaveRider, an unmanned scramjet powered demonstration aircraft for hypersonic flight testing. The aim of the aircraft is to travel at Mach 6 or 4000 miles per hour. As this aircraft uses its shock wave for adding lift it has been named WaveRider. The X-51A WaveRider has the capability of travelling across the United States in less than one hour.  This aircraft is a result of the Waverider program which is run jointly by Boeing, the Air Force Research Laboratory, DARPA and Pratt & Whitney Rocketdyne. This X-51 technology is going to be used in a Mach 5+ missile named High Speed Strike Weapon (HSSW) which is planned to be launched in 2020.

The X-51A WaveRider is chiefly designed to demonstrate various aspects of hypersonic flight. It completed its first ever flight on 26 May 2010 and in June the second test flight took place. With a goal of achieving Mach 6 for 300 seconds, a test flight was conducted in August 2012. But the aircraft crushed after 16 seconds due to some troubles in the control fin. After all these failed attempts, X-51A completed its first successful flight on May 1 2013.  In that flight X-51A achieved hypersonic speed above Mach 5 for 210 seconds.

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