Search Results for “supersonic”
There are 10 results.
- You are currently searching All Media
Video:
japan's space agency on monday completed the first successful test of a prototype jet that can fly at twice the speed of sound, three years after an earlier test ended in a fiery wreck in the australian outback, an official said.
kenichi saito, a spokesman for the japan aerospace exploration agency, or jaxa, said monday's unmanned test flight went "as planned."
"everything was very good and the aircraft landed ... normally," saito said in a telephone interview. "we are going to conduct the (data) analysis, but currently we think this flight was a success."
a breakthrough in supersonic flight could help japan leap ahead in the aerospace field. the country, which manufactures high-tech components for u.s.-based boeing co., has only a limited domestic airplane industry.
saito said the prototype 38-foot-long, arrow-shaped craft, developed by mitsubishi heavy industries ltd., was launched on a rocket and reached a flying altitude of 11 miles before floating back to earth by parachute.
the test follows a three-year hiatus after the first experimental flight of the unmanned aircraft separated prematurely from its booster rocket and crashed into the desert.
monday's $10 million experiment marked a crucial step in japan's plans to develop a larger supersonic aircraft that can carry 300 passengers between tokyo and los angeles in about four hours.
it also underpinned a june agreement between japan and france to jointly research a possible successor to the concorde over the next three years.
the concorde first flew in 1969 and became a symbol of french and european industrial prowess. in july 2000, a concorde crashed in flames after takeoff from charles de gaulle airport near paris, killing 109 people. the sleek but costly planes were retired from commercial service in 2003, never having recouped the billions of tax dollars invested in them.
japan hopes to have a successor making regular flights by around 2025, saito said.
news.yahoo.com
Video:
for years, the u.s. military has wanted a plane that could loiter just outside enemy territory for more than a dozen hours and, on command, hurtle toward a target faster than the speed of sound. and then level it. but aircraft that excel at subsonic flight are inefficient at mach speeds, and vice versa.
the answer is switchblade, an unmanned, shape-changing plane concept under development by northrop grumman.
when completed (target date: 2020), it will cruise with its 200-foot-long wing perpendicular to its engines like a normal airplane. but just before the craft breaks the sound barrier, its single wing will swivel around 60 degrees (hence the name) so that one end points forward and the other back. this oblique configuration redistributes the shock waves that pile up in front of a plane at mach speeds and cause drag. when the switchblade returns to subsonic speeds, the wing will rotate back to perpendicular.
smart plan. now for the hard part: designing the thing. darpa, the pentagon’s way-out research arm, has coughed up $10.3 million to northrop grumman to produce a detailed blueprint by november 2007. a flying test vehicle is due about four years later. the initial concept calls for a single wing with engines situated in a pod underneath, along with munitions and surveillance equipment. this setup will enable the wing to pivot while the engines remain pointed in the direction the craft is traveling.
this is not the first attempt at an oblique-wing aircraft. spaceshipone creator burt rutan designed a switch-wing plane with nasa in 1979. but the slanted wings made the craft hard to fly—when the pilot pulled the nose up, the plane would roll to one side.
the switchblade, however, is a good candidate to be an unmanned aerial vehicle (uav). the artificial intelligence used to control uavs can handle the tricky flight dynamics, and a computer pilot doesn’t need to eat, rest, or go to the bathroom—useful for those 15-plus-hour missions.
if all goes well, darpa says, a 40-foot-wingspan demonstration model could be ready by 2010, and a full-size switchblade should be all set for a brawl by 2020.
source (with pics)
