Mach 20 aircraft takes to the skies

Superman might be fast, but he is a fictional character – here is DARPA’s very own Falcon Hypersonic Technology Vehicle 2 which is set to take to the skies today, where this experimental vehicle is tipped to hit Mach 20 – which is 20 times the speed of sound. The amazing speed at which it cuts through the airspace means this aircraft is capable of reaching anywhere in the world within a single hour. Don’t you as a frequent traveler wish that your trans-continental flight would also be that speedy?

The Falcon Hypersonic Technology Vehicle 2 is tipped to launch sometime between 7:00am and 1:00 pm PDT from Vandenberg Air Force Base in California, where it will be on-board an Air Force Minotaur IV rocket. There is no guarantee for success, which explains why no one is piloting the aircraft inside, as the vehicle’s original test flight which happened last April lost contact with the Air Force a mere nine minutes after it took to the skies, where the vehicle performed a controlled descent into the ocean.

Mach 20 hypersonic flight is possible via physics-based computational models and simulations, but to see it happen in real life would require a whole lot more testing to be done. I wonder what it feels like sitting in something like this. Woe to any bird who gets in the way of the Falcon…

Edwin Kee
Categories: Military, Transportation
Tags: darpa