Australian and American scientists have successfully flown a scramjet engine at Mach 10, or ten times the speed of sound. The flight took place in the Australian outback – or, more precisely, a long way above the outback. (A scramjet is a ramjet where supersonic combustion occurs, producing extremely high efficiencies.)
The experimental scramjet engine is an air-breathing supersonic combustion engine being developed by Australian and U.S. defense scientists that researchers hope will lead to super-high speed flight.
Scientists from Australia's defense Science and Technology Organization and the U.S. Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA), used a conventional rocket to launch the scramjet high above the Woomera test site.
The engine was then tested as it reached speeds of Mach 10.
Scramjets need a rocket to propel the vehicle to high-speed before the engine can take over. They also need to operate in the thin atmosphere far above the altitude of commercial airliners.
"All the indications are it was a success, and we have some very happy scientists," an Australian defense spokesman told Reuters on Friday.
This would appear to be a further development of the HyShot program from the University of Queensland that I posted about last year. This article does not indicate whether that project is still involved in this, although I'd be surprised if some of those scientists are not still on board. If they can get the engine up to Mach 24, they can theoretically use it to reach orbit.
You know the Animal Uprisingâ„¢ is working on a high-flying kamikaze bird to take out our scramjets, don’t you?
OK, so I have no evidence but I know how they think. Buggers.
At that speed, you hardly would have time to say, “G’dye, myte” before you were trashing Pyongyang.