Darpa's HTV-2 program

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Bee

671 posts

Ultimate Geek

#89163 26-Aug-2011 16:20

Am I the only one who finds it extremely odd that the US Defence force have this supersonic jet thing, that they will go around the world in 1 hour and during testing they have LOST 2 of them into the ocean?

Well that's obviously not the odd thing - what is odd is that all this is public Knowledge...

If I didn't know better I might think that its all just a propaganda campaign by the US to keep their enemies at bay and such a plane does not and cannot exist at all...

Doing your best is much more important than being the best.

SandyJ

152 posts

Master Geek

#512593 26-Aug-2011 16:36

Or it really does exist and they are just SAYING it went down.......

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Mooseboy

124 posts

Master Geek

#512620 26-Aug-2011 17:50

According the article on stuff, most previous tests have resulted in flights of a few seconds or minutes long before crashing, this one got 9 minutes, with 3 minutes of stable flight, which while it might sound like much, is still quite an improvement.

Remember that the Wright brothers first flight only lasted about 45 seconds; and they weren't flying at mach 20.

SandyJ

152 posts

Master Geek

#512678 26-Aug-2011 20:09

Agency releases video of hypersonic glider flight

An unmanned glider streaks over the Pacific Ocean at 20 times the speed of sound in a video released Thursday by a U.S. defense research agency experimenting with technology that could give the military the ability to strike any part of the globe within an hour.

The Aug. 11 test ended early when a problem caused the craft's safety system to force it down into the ocean but the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency said valuable data was collected in the nearly three minutes of free flight at the hypersonic speed of Mach 20 ? about 13,000 mph.

The Falcon Hypersonic Test Vehicle-2 was launched from Vandenberg Air Force Base, Calif., atop a Minotaur 4 rocket that carried it to the edge of space, performed what DARPA described as a series of aggressive banks and turns, and then released the glider.

The video taken by a crewmember on a tracking ship shows the rocket and vehicle together as a fast-moving contrail and then the HTV-2 as a faint dot zipping away on its own.

"It gives us a visceral feel for what it means to fly at Mach 20," DARPA Director Regina Dugan said in a statement.

[url]http://news.yahoo.com/agency-releases-video-hypersonic-glider-flight-180046709.html[/url]

TheUngeek

924 posts

Ultimate Geek
Inactive user

#512771 27-Aug-2011 08:45

Nothing at all odd about any of it. It's no secret that they have been working on this sort of thing for a long time.
This isn't a stealth aircraft where secrecy is paramount. It's a fast reaction craft. So people knowing about it will act as a sort of deterrent.

Also with the technology available to the general public and the large area that test would cover it's quite likely it was witnessed by members of the public.

gzt

15193 posts

Uber Geek

Lifetime subscriber

#512785 27-Aug-2011 09:38

In three minutes at that speed it will travel nearly 1000km. If you want to recover the craft you need to be in the right place. The 'force down' will be very controlled. In case of failure, you would expect a destruct protocol to become active automatically.

It is likely the test was scheduled for no longer than three minutes. Sounds like a big success to me.