X-51A – Behind The Black – Robert Zimmerman

After four tries the Air Force X-51A Waverider test craft finally succeeded in achieving sustained, scramjet-powered, air-breathing hypersonic flight above Mach 5 in its final test flight on May 1.

May 2, 2013 4:40 pm Robert Zimmerman

After four tries the Air Force X-51A Waverider test craft finally succeeded in achieving sustained, scramjet-powered, air-breathing hypersonic flight above Mach 5 in its final test flight on May 1.

4 comments

The Air Force has released its investigation into the failure of the August test flight of the X-51a hypersonic scramjet.

October 24, 2012 6:40 pm Robert Zimmerman

The Air Force has released its investigation into the failure of the August test flight of the X-51a hypersonic scramjet.

As first surmised, the problem was a control fin. Though they haven’t set the date for the next test flight, it appears they do intend to proceed.

A test flight of an Air Force hypersonic aircraft failed yesterday when it went out of control before its experimental scramjet engine could be started

August 15, 2012 12:45 pm Robert Zimmerman

A test flight of an Air Force hypersonic aircraft failed yesterday when it went out of control before its experimental scramjet engine could be started.

Though failures during engineering tests are not really failures, as the goal is to find out if the engineering works or doesn’t, this particular failure is a bit more like a real failure. They never got to test the scramjet engine, which was the point of the entire flight. Instead, they had a failure of a control fin on the aircraft, and it appears that this fin was “faulty.” Not a good sign, especially as the previous flight in June 2011 also failed prematurely.