The U.S. military launched an experimental hypersonic aircraft on its swan song test flight Wednesday (May 1), accelerating the craft to more than five times the speed of sound in the longest-ever mission for a vehicle of its kind.
The Air Force's X-51A Waverider reached a top speed of Mach 5.1 during the test flight, traveling more than 230 nautical miles in just over six minutes before crashing into the Pacific Ocean off the California coast as planned, Air Force officials announced today (May 3).
Wednesday's flight used the last of four X-51A vehicles built by Boeing for the Air Force experiments. While the previous test, in August 2012, was a failure, Wednesday's mission pulled off the longest air-breathing hypersonic flight ever, officials said. . . .
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See Also:
X-51 WaveRider Hypersonic Craft Lost During Test (Video)
VIDEO | Second Launch of Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency's (DARPA) Hypersonic Plane (HTV-2) Took Place Today
VIDEO | US Military Loses Contact with Falcon HTV-2 in Bid to Become Fastest Ever Plane
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