Darpa to start testing aircraft that can go to plaid

[gophins72]

check e-bay.

 

[Zargon]

for realz

it has begun

dun dun dun dun

 

[Ken g6]

Hm, a craft traveling at hypersonic speeds in the upper atmosphere, lost during a period of solar flare activity? I hope Captain Crais doesn't figure out where to find us! 😱

 

[shiner]

Hm, a craft traveling at hypersonic speeds in the upper atmosphere, lost during a period of solar flare activity? I hope Captain Crais doesn't figure out where to find us! 😱

Hmmm...wouldn't be so bad as long as I get to spend some naked time with either Aeryn Sun or Chiana

 

[-Slacker-]

Launching a "plane" from a rocket kind of defeat the purpose of having the plane in the first place, in my opinion. They might as well just replace the plane with warheads.

 

[Nintendesert]

Hmmm...wouldn't be so bad as long as I get to spend some naked time with either Aeryn Sun or Chiana

I'll take Zhaan!

 

[JTsyo]

I don't get it. They didn't have radar coverage?

 

[DesiPower]

nice!! now we can chase all those people trying to out run us on camel backs in the desert... those darn animals can run really fast

 

[911paramedic]

Thursday's flight was to test control and communications capabilities, as well as heat resistance and other effects of hypersonic flight.

Fail.

 

[Miramonti]

They found it!

 

[Miramonti]

2700 seconds is 45 minutes, which is a helluva long time imo.

It should be rather easy to find, just look for multiple Russian and Chinese ships rapidly converging somewhere in it's intended flight path.

 

[hanoverphist]

They lost it after it began flying on it's own? Uh oh. SKYNET!

mebbe it was christened as the event horizon. it will return at some point.

 

[CrackRabbit]

mebbe it was christened as the event horizon. it will return at some point.

I'm sure we will find it someday, completely intact, resting against a rock on Phobos.

 

[LookBehindYou]

Sounds like it went from suck to blow.

 

[brainhulk]

Somebody must have jammed our radar

 

[Eli]

2700 seconds is 45 minutes, which is a helluva long time imo.

It should be rather easy to find, just look for multiple Russian and Chinese ships rapidly converging somewhere in it's intended flight path.

Yeah, I was thinking the same thing. It sounds like this flight was much more successful than the last one at least.

 

[Lithium381]

a nuclear payload on such a vehicle would mean that wars are started - and finished - in a matter of minutes.

sounds like the typical ATOTers sex life.... well, with a different payload

 

[apac]

Somebody must have jammed our radar

Raspberry!

 

[brainhulk]

last known transmission over african desert, we sent out a search party

 

[JimKiler]

Looks like the flight was a success in one way, they know it is bad to go mach 20 because the stress on the skin was 100 times greater than expected and it came off.

http://abcnews.go.com/blogs/headlines/2012/04/super-secret-hypersonic-aircraft-flew-out-of-its-skin/

After an eight-month investigation, DARPA concluded that even though the HTV-2 was expected to lose some of its skin mid-flight, “larger than anticipated portions of the vehicle’s skin peeled from the aerostructure,”

The agency said it expected the HTV-2... ...to experience “impulsive shock waves” at such speeds, but shocks it experienced last August were “more than 100 times what the vehicle was designed to withstand.”

 

[DisgruntledVirus]

http://www.ted.com/talks/regina_dugan_from_mach_20_glider_to_humming_bird_drone.html

She talks about the glider for a bit and states they had a few minutes of totally controlled flight.

 

[Merad]

unless you're close to going the speed of light, wouldnt the speed of the plane add to the speed of the bullet (or missile) making it go yet faster? but i suppose it wouldn't matter because the air friction would instantly vaporize it eh?

though i'm guessing if it is compensating for that temperature, it's using something which would prevent it from firing anything at all, lest the heat get past the protection and cause the inside of the plane to melt.

it's cool tech, anyways!

The shell starts decelerating as soon as it leaves the muzzle. When they first started using jet fighters after WW2, many of them were armed with low velocity cannon. There were a few planes capable of firing their guns and then running into their own shells from behind.

 

[JTsyo]

Looks like the flight was a success in one way, they know it is bad to go mach 20 because the stress on the skin was 100 times greater than expected and it came off.

http://abcnews.go.com/blogs/headlines/2012/04/super-secret-hypersonic-aircraft-flew-out-of-its-skin/

How I made it out was that once the skin came off the resulting shockwaves caused the load on the plane to be 100X the design margin. Not that the skin friction was 100X greater. I would think supersonic drag is pretty well understood even at hypersonic speeds.

 

[FoBoT]

so DARPA has discovered erosion

sweet

 

[Genx87]

The shell starts decelerating as soon as it leaves the muzzle. When they first started using jet fighters after WW2, many of them were armed with low velocity cannon. There were a few planes capable of firing their guns and then running into their own shells from behind.

shens