(Image source: DARPA)
BY JING ZHAO
ANCHOR JIM FLINK
New York to LA -- in 12 minutes?
Uh -- That’s fast.
On Thursday the U.S. military tested out the world’s fastest plane.
International Business Times has more:
“The Falcon HTV-2, which is the fastest plane ever built, is capable of reaching any target in the world in less than an hour ...They hypersonic plane will reach speeds of up to 13,000 mph, which is roughly 20 time the speed of sound.”
It would have been a record-breaker...if it had worked. ABC reports...
“...controllers said they lost contact with the hypersonic plane less than an hour after it left the ground.”
Until Thursday’s launch- the super-speedy plane had only been tested in computer models and wind tunnels.
The Defense Advance Research Projects Agency, or DARPA, has this 3D video showing what should have happened. A rocket carries the unmanned aircraft to the edge of space-- and then the Falcon speeds along for more than 4000 miles. Everything was fine until about 20 minutes into the mission-- when DARPA lost contact. (Video: YouTube)
Officials say the Falcon had the technology to ditch itself in the ocean if anything went wrong-- but they’re not sure what happened yet. Before the launch, a WIRED blogger wrote...
“The stakes are huge for the upcoming flight. Darpa has no plans to build a third vehicle. And, unless this test goes well, it’s unlikely that the Air Force or any other branch of the military will pick up on the agency’s work.”
The LA Times adds-- the super-fast plane would have provided...
“...the Pentagon with a vehicle capable of delivering a military strike anywhere in the world in less than an hour.”
The launch is first for this Falcon aircraft-- DARPA’s first Falcon crashed into the sea during a test flight in April 2010. CNN reports, the first Falcon was only in the air for 9 minutes...
“But those nine minutes provided DARPA with some key information about flying at 3.6 miles per second...flying 22 times faster than a commercial jetliner.”
For the short time the Falcon was in flight-- it had to withstand temperatures around 3500 degrees Fahrenheit.
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