Australian-American HiFIRE Hypersonic Test Flight a Success, Hits Mach 7.5

The Australian Department of Defence has announced the successful launch of a hypersonic aircraft called Hypersonic International Flight Research Experimentation (HIFiRE) 5B at the Woomera Test range. According to a statement, the craft reached a velocity of Mach 7.5 (5,710 mph, 9,188 km/h) and an altitude of 278 km (173 mi) as part of an Australian-United States program to study fundamental technologies needed to travel over five times the speed of sound.

www.gizmag.com...

Professor Michael Smart from UQ’s School of Mechanical and Mining Engineering said the flight placed the Australian aerospace industry on the international stage.

“UQ is pleased to be part of a group of highly skilled individuals doing cutting edge research,” he said.

"We’re excited by the contributions this and future HIFiRE flights will make to the advancement of hypersonic flight technology.”

HiFiRE 5B is one of 10 experimental flights as part of the international collaboration which investigates the physical phenomenon of flying faster than five times the speed of sound.

“The knowledge gained from these experiments will be applied to develop future flight vehicles and testing of advanced air-breathing hypersonic propulsion engines, known as scramjets,” Professor Smart said.

Source: University of Queensland (au), news, May 19, 2016 - Hypersonic flight on the horizon

A scram jet! Cool! Just wanted to give props to the Aussie's by providing QU link!

a reply to: anzha

Found a vid!

YouTube - SciNews

NASA report from its last test launch back in 2012:

www.nasa.gov...

Still too slow, what we all need is Lightspeed! So we can colonize a dead planet for ores. Then go to Jupiter, then Pluton, etc.

Fkn Woomera....

Soulless, dustbowl hell hole that is the end of the earth - especially when you're bumping around the range in an AFV in the middle of summer . Good to see that some progress is being made, especially with the Aust. DoD and universities in the lead.

Last thing I heard of being tested out of there was the Taranis demonstrator, and some other sensor equipment that I heard buzzing around late at night when we were at another range nearby.

a reply to: anzha


Since when do we call a rocket an "aircraft?"

What is new about this business? What totally new technology is involved that has not been on the books for decades?

a reply to: Aliensun

It's a scram jet that uses a rocket booster to accelerate it to speeds that can start the scram jet at which point the booster falls off. It is an air breathing aircraft at that point.
The big news is that they are still doing something with the tech in the white world and they are still working on perfecting the tech.

originally posted by: Aliensun
a reply to: anzha


Since when do we call a rocket an "aircraft?"

What is new about this business? What totally new technology is involved that has not been on the books for decades?

So the X1, X2 weren't aircraft because they were rocket powered?

A friend of mine is involved with the micro flight controllers.Nice work
There have been a few evolutions of HiFire.
HiFire

a reply to: Flipper35

No, the general concensus is they were aircraft but not airplanes. Regardless of personal opinion.

Me163 predated them all.A Flea oh so small but can she gooooooooo.