im still watching this right now on tv, i know its a reapeat it ia about the joint fighter project with the UK and USA, with Boeing and Lockheed Martin competing for the contract, and the anouncer just said that the lockhead plane just hit mach 9.8. im not a big plane person but isnt 9.8 like amazingly high?? then after that it did a hoover manuver a 360spin in a hoover then landed in hoover, it was fantastic to watch.

...mach 9.8...i seriously doubt that it will reach mach 9.8......

Mach 9.8 is very freak'in fast and I seriouslt doubt it, the machine, would bother to stop and hover at all. Furthur more I seriously doubt it was occupied by a human being! That being said the machine exists!

p.s. thats about 10.000 miles per hour and nothing living could deal with the acceleration factor in atmosphere on a continual basis. but you can try if you would like to, simply volunteer!

Isn't that supposed to be secret?

Yea!!!!!!!!!!!!
Well ya know there ain't much time or secret's left.

According to the unclassified info the maximum Mach number that an airplane ever reached was 6.7. This record was set by US experimental plane X-15 in November 1967. It was powered by rocket engine and flew just at the edge of the atmosphere. Nevertheless it had serious problems with aerodynamic heating. Will you try to put an aircraft to Mach 9.8 inside the altitude envelop of conventionally powered (i.e. powered by the engines that use atmospheric oxygen to burn fuel) airplanes, it will turn into a nice bright fireball in a matter of seconds. And for a VTOL aircraft a figure of M1.8 or even M0.98 looks MUCH more realistic.

tututkamen

There's nothing to do with acceleration here. Space rockets accelerate to the speeds of about 7.5 miles per SECOND however I've never heard about any astronaut's death due to over G. The acceleration figure is what matters here, i.e. how fast the rocket reaches the said speed.

the plane had to be able to hoover it was part of the conditions of getting the contact, lockhead martin won btw. it had a really cool way to hoover, the exhaust turns to face down and then the top of the plane opens and a massive fan pushes air through the top of the plane and out the bottom, creating 2 shafts of air making it 200% more effective then the Harrier. Was really cool to watch.

Both the X-35 and the X-32 cant go far past mach 1.

I SERIOUSLY doubt ANY airbreathing VTOL can reach mach 2, let #ing alone mach 10!!!!!!!!

Mach 9.8?

The world speed record is mach 6.7 and that was set by an X-15. Are you sure it wasn't mach .98? This is high subsonic and would seem much more realistic.

Tim

alright mach 9.8 is a little b.s. was the craft unmanned? lol. Either that reporter was stoned, or just wanted to yang the country's chain with this record. I just think that this isn't right because i watch the news all the time and i haven't heard anything on it whatsoever.


~jeff p.s you have nothing to back up what you've said about this plane.

The fastest manned aircrafts go at Mach 3... first humans need to go at mach 4-9 before we can do ten .

We did! The X-15 reached mach 7 and the shuttle reaches mach 25.

I think he means conventional aircraft, such as jets. The shuttle is a glider and the X-15 was a rocket with wings.