The Boeing X-51 Waverider is an experimental unmanned hypersonic aircraft developed by Boeing for the United States Air Force, designed to test a scramjet engine, a form of jet engine with no moving compressor parts that relies on the aircraft's own high speed to compress incoming air for combustion, a design intended to sustain flight at many times the speed of sound. Carried aloft under a B-52 bomber and boosted to scramjet ignition speed by a rocket booster before its own engine took over, it achieved sustained scramjet-powered hypersonic flight during a 2013 test, one of the longest such flights achieved at the time, and the program's results advanced research toward future hypersonic vehicles for both military and potential civilian applications.
Facts
SignificanceUnmanned scramjet research aircraft for Mach 5 hypersonic flight; its fourth test flight on 1 May 2013 was its first fully successful. 1 Manufacturer or Builder Sources
1. Boeing X-51 Waverider (Wikipedia)
Lead paragraph, first powered flight
It completed its first powered hypersonic flight on 26 May 2010.
Lead paragraph, first sentence
The Boeing X-51 Waverider is an unmanned research scramjet experimental aircraft for hypersonic flight at Mach 5 (3,300 mph; 5,300 km/h) and an altitude of 70,000 feet (21,000 m).
Flight test history, 2013
On 1 May 2013, the X-51 performed its first fully successful flight test on its fourth test flight.
View the SourceBoeing X-51 Waverider (Wikipedia)
In Group: Rocket-Powered and Hypersonic Research Aircraft, Lead sentenceQuote, In Group: Rocket-Powered and Hypersonic Research Aircraft, Lead sentence
The Boeing X-51 Waverider is an unmanned research scramjet experimental aircraft for hypersonic flight at Mach 5 (3,300 mph; 5,300 km/h) and an altitude of 70,000 feet (21,000 m).
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