Video : Air Force 'Hypersonic' Jet Sets New Speed Records

New speed records have been set by the X-51A Waverider, watch the amazing video below to watch it reach speeds up to five times the speed of sound. Apparently this thing would take half an hour to go from Europe to America! Anything which has the potential for speeding up time we spend on airplanes whilst traveling has to be a good thing right?

The Air Force says the X-51A Waverider flew at six times the speed of sound for more than 3 minutes yesterday morning after being released from a B-52 off the southern California coast. Its scramjet engine accelerated the vehicle to Mach 6, and it flew autonomously for 200 seconds before losing acceleration. At that point the test was terminated. The Air Force says the previous record for a hypersonic scramjet burn was 12 seconds.

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[edit on 21/05/2010 by bonsaisert]

Man that was awesome. I wonder what it would do to the human body? I am assuming it was a UAV? Considering how test went back in the day with Yeager. It looks more like a missle, oh man that would be one helluva ride.

Oh sweet! I love that we're continuing to develop scram jet technology. Maybe there's still some hope for the NASP and other like vehicles eh? I wonder what the acceleration profile was? What a ride that would be!