Woomera hosts HIFiRE hypersonic test flight

Woomera hosts HIFiRE hypersonic test flight

www.theaustralian.news.com.au

AUSTRALIAN and US defence scientists have conducted a successful test flight of a hypersonic aircraft high over the Woomera test range in outback South Australia.

Defence Science and Personnel Minister Warren Snowdon said the Woomera flight, conducted earlier this month, was the first in a series of up to 10 planned hypersonic flight experiments.

(visit the link for the full news article)

It's good to see US and Australia cooperating on this kind of advanced technology, but gee I wish they would be done with jet propulsion and get on board with anti grav already!

Under the HIFiRE program, the test vehicle was carried some 200km into the atmosphere aboard a rocket launched from Woomera.

It then dived back into the atmosphere at high speed to test the hypersonic flight technology.

Mr Snowdon said the HIFiRE collaboration had already achieved some significant milestones in design, assembly and pre-flight testing of hypersonic vehicles and the design of complex avionics and flight systems.

www.theaustralian.news.com.au
(visit the link for the full news article)

I'm interested what the thing actually looks like though. I mean this in the news, but we haven't been aloud to see any photos of it yet?

Also, hypersonic aircraft have probably already been developed and in use for military testing for decades. There is alot of video and photographic evidence that seems to suggest that such technology has been well tested by the military outside the watchful eye of even the government. Black budget money has been going to such technology, without a doubt, and that would also make sense given the ever-expanding infrastructure at Area51. Expansion of the groom lake facility goes back at least a decade, contrary to what alot of magazine articles have claimed which is that the base has been closed. If anything, the activities at the base are steadily on the rise.. Brand new, immense hangars have been built, support and maintenance facilities are still being constructed, and "Janet" flights are ferrying people to and from Area51 at least 2-3 times daily.

Alot of hypersonic aircraft technology has already been developed and has been getting "perfected" over the last decade or two using black budget dollars. But some companies in the private sector have also openly been researching hypersonic propulsion systems for about a decade. In 2002 I read a mainstream news article (I think it was from CNN) that said Boeing was dumping untold amounts of R&D money into anti-gravity propulsion.. I was in the military at the time I read the article. Since then, I've searched high and low for that news story but it doesn't seem to be anywhere.. (which seems pretty odd to me).

Here is a thread I started a year or two ago which has a youtube video showing what some people are claiming is "aurora", and although we have no way of knowing that (it's too far away), it definately seems as though some kind of Pulse detonation technology is in use by this aircraft when you watch the formation of the very distinct contrail.

Video proof of pulse detonation propulsion?

I mean, comon. Stealth technology was researched and developed at Area51 during the 1960's and 70's.. Pulse detonation propulsion was originally patented even before that in 1952. To think that we don't have all sorts of hypersonic propulsion systems by now is almost absurd when you account for the immensity of black budget spending since that timeframe. R&D of newer generations of extremely-advanced aircraft didn't end with the B-2, the F-117, or the F-22.. And we know that the air force is testing something at Area51. Research and development of the F-117 (originally contracted under the name "have-blue") began in 1969, but it didn't enter operational status until 1983. That's a long time to keep an aircraft completely unknown to the public. And they did it, despite people reporting "UFO's" of black triangles flying around over the years.

It could be that they are publicly researching and perfecting the technology completely separate from any black-budget research conducted thus far. But even then, the government might just see this as an opportune time to phase-in such new technology so people don't completely lose it when already existing hypersonic aircraft like aurora are eventually declassified. It would at least make complete sense that the private sector would be years behind the world of black budget research (also separate from NASA, as NASA is its own federally-funded government entity).

Not to say NASA scientists and engineers haven't worked on black budget programs because they probably have. But there would be no cross-over of technology between the two for obvious national security reasons.

This part of the news article is what is kinda silly when you think about it..

"Hypersonic technology offers a quantum leap in speed and fuel efficiency for air vehicles of the future,'' he said.

We already know that hypersonic technology maximizes efficiency (depending on the properties of the engine, aircraft) as well as speed. But as far as this approach and launching the vehicle on a rocket.. When you consider the fact that they had to launch it on a friggin rocket It's actually not such a "quantum leap" as far as efficiency goes.. It's actually pretty inefficient when you factor that detail in. Somehow they are eventually going to have to figure out how to make it feasible for an aircraft at subsonic speeds to be able to take off and land. That could make the engine ALOT less efficient. And that's something they would even admit, though maybe not publicly. Unless, of coarse, they just plan on launching airplanes up on rockets or magnetic slingshots (both not so cost effective when you include all these different factors).

Even the SR-71 was extremely fuel efficient at high-altitude "cruising" speeds. But when the SR-71 sat on the runway prior to takeoff the thing pissed fuel like a 65 year old alcoholic with no bladder control. It had to be refuelled as soon as it took off or it would inevitably crash. This is because the aircraft heated up so much during flight that metal expansion had to be factored into the engineering of the aircraft. Prior to take-off, the metal hadn't expanded properly yet.. Thus, it dumped fuel all over itself and the runway. So, again, efficiency is always relative to the engineering of the aircraft. An aircraft that is efficient at its designed air-speed is not necessarily an energy efficient aircraft (or cost efficient for that matter).

-ChriS

[edit on 22-5-2009 by BlasteR]