World's Largest Aircraft Goes Supersonic In First Powered Flight (geekwire.com) 32
An anonymous reader quotes a report from GeekWire: Chalk up another milestone for Stratolaunch, the air-launch venture created by the late Microsoft co-founder Paul Allen: The company's mammoth airplane deployed a winged test vehicle for its first rocket-powered flight. Stratolaunch's single-use TA-1 test vehicle blazed a trail for future reusable hypersonic test vehicles that are expected to help the U.S. military catch up on one of the frontiers of aerial combat. TA-1 went supersonic, according to Zachary Krevor, Stratolaunch's president and CEO -- but based on his comments, it may not have quite hit the hypersonic standard of five times the speed of sound. "While I can't share the specific altitude and speed TA-1 reached due to proprietary agreements with our customers, we are pleased to share that in addition to meeting all primary and customer objectives of the flight, we reached high supersonic speeds approaching Mach 5 and collected a great amount of data at an incredible value to our customers," Krevor said in a news release.
Today's test flight took place in the skies above California's Mojave Air and Space Port, where Stratolaunch keeps its twin-fuselage Roc airplane. Roc is the world's biggest operational aircraft, with a wingspan of 385 feet. It's designed to serve as a flying launch pad for rocket-powered vehicles like the TA-1 and its successors. The air-launch concept makes it possible for launch missions to be flown from any airport with a runway that's big enough to accommodate Roc. It's similar to the concept that was used back in 2004 to win the $10 million Ansari X Prize for private spaceflight with financial backing from Paul Allen. [...] This flight was the 14th test mission for Roc, coming after an unpowered separation test of its TA-0 vehicle and two captive-carry test flights for TA-1. Today's test also marked the first in-flight use of Ursa Major's Hadley rocket engine. The primary test objectives included a safe release of TA-1, engine ignition, acceleration, sustained climb in altitude and a controlled splashdown into the Pacific.
Today's test flight took place in the skies above California's Mojave Air and Space Port, where Stratolaunch keeps its twin-fuselage Roc airplane. Roc is the world's biggest operational aircraft, with a wingspan of 385 feet. It's designed to serve as a flying launch pad for rocket-powered vehicles like the TA-1 and its successors. The air-launch concept makes it possible for launch missions to be flown from any airport with a runway that's big enough to accommodate Roc. It's similar to the concept that was used back in 2004 to win the $10 million Ansari X Prize for private spaceflight with financial backing from Paul Allen. [...] This flight was the 14th test mission for Roc, coming after an unpowered separation test of its TA-0 vehicle and two captive-carry test flights for TA-1. Today's test also marked the first in-flight use of Ursa Major's Hadley rocket engine. The primary test objectives included a safe release of TA-1, engine ignition, acceleration, sustained climb in altitude and a controlled splashdown into the Pacific.
Slight Correction (Score:5, Informative)
The headline states that the "World's largest aircraft goes supersonic;" the reality, however, is that the large subsonic aircraft launched a smaller test vehicle which went supersonic and at least "nearly" hit hypersonic speeds.
Re:Slight Correction (Score:5, Informative)
Re: Slight Correction (Score:2)
Kindly fix the very bad headline.
Thanx
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Also, were the Roc to hit supersonic speeds (none too likely), it would do so for a very short time only, before falling apart. It most certainly was not built to break the sound barrier.
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#theyKnew
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Clickbait headlines come to Slashdot...
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Whoever OK'ed this headline needs to be fired. Blatant dishonest false news, an embarrassing disgrace for Slashdot. What were they thinking?
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Threads like this sell ads.
Re:Slight Correction (Score:4, Insightful)
By their definition of "going supersonic" anyone who has fired a gun has "gone supersonic".
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https://www.reddit.com/r/Histo... [reddit.com]
Granted the X1 only went about 20% as fast, but it did have Chuck Yeager inside.
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Paul Allen is dead.
Paul, "Do you like Huey Lewis & the News?"
Re:Paul Allen evil asshole (Score:4, Funny)
Paul Allen is dead.
That's just a rumor based on spinning the Windows 95 CD backward.
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In the picture of Paul and Bill Gates walking across the street, Paul is bare foot and in Sicily, dead people don't wear shoes, so Paul is really dead. Wait Wrong Paul .. Nevermind
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Poor soldiers, supposedly. The first user of this technology will be the military.
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The military plays, the taxpayer pays.
Major design flaw (Score:2)
That jet has a major design flaw IMHO. The two fuselages are interconnected at a single point. Were an engine or mechanical failure to impact one side of the aircraft, it is likely the torque will be so great that it will tear the aircraft apart.
The tail should have been connected like a P-38 to minimize flex so that the aircraft doesn't torque itself apart.
=(
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I don't mean to take away from your obvious expertise, but the fact that it's been certified, it's still flying and it's still performing its duty as a stratospheric launch platform tells me Burt Rutan may have known a thing or two about aircraft design that you don't.
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Please keep your opinions to yourself. They are terrible, wrong and only reveal what a fool you are.
Proprietary? (Score:2)
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It's military tech, they'd prefer you not know its exact capabilities. No idea why they are saying proprietary instead of classified, maybe it's just considered CUI which isn't quite classified but close enough.
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Being Classified is an actual... classification.
Being proprietary has no actual classification, and could refer to any of a number of classifications.
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Proprietary means it's owned by someone. Information is often proprietary. "Don't go blabbing this all over the internet" is a common section in a contract.
Wrote proof read the headline (Score:1)