

Super Secret Hypersonic Aircraft Flew Out of Its Skin - devy
http://www.darpa.mil/NewsEvents/Releases/2012/04/20.aspx

======
krschultz
I'm not sure if it can still be described as 'super secret' if we're reading
about it on the official DARPA blog.

~~~
hga
Indeed, nothing about it being secret appears anywhere in the blog posting,
prosaic title is:

ENGINEERING REVIEW BOARD CONCLUDES REVIEW OF HTV-2 SECOND TEST FLIGHT

And it's quite cool; of particular note is their analysis that the
improvements prompted by the previous first test allowed the flight control
system to keep it stable for a while as the skin was peeling off and creating
nasty aerodynamic effects. And I gather they have some real world to provide
the materials science types.

------
izak30
For those interested, at mach 20 it seems to take 98 minutes to go around the
equator (on the surface). In the nine minutes of sustained flight, it could
have covered 3675km on the ground.

------
gouranga
Like a banana through a fence.

Seriously if you've never done it - throw a banana HARD through a fence. Quite
interesting.

Yes I am insane.

~~~
pavel_lishin
I... would like to see a video of this.

~~~
pinko
<http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bVa15C0xHSo>

~~~
Todd
I love the Internets.

------
AsylumWarden
It really sounds like the only real problem was the material that covers the
aircraft not being able to withstand the forces at mach 20. I wonder what the
material was and if they can find something better without a lot more
materials research. I love this stuff!

------
brc
So given this thing goes Mach 20, how fast does it get there?

If the intention is to have a platform that can deliver 'stuff' (whether
munitions, supplies or people) is there going to be a problem with g-loading
on acceleration and deceleration?

------
tocomment
Are they going to continue this research or was that the last flight?

~~~
protomyth
It was my understanding from previous articles that this is an ongoing
project.

~~~
sek
They should take an Fail Fast approach, why not make several test flights at
10000 and look for problems. 400 Million for the first flight seems really
expensive.

~~~
protomyth
They have a fair amount of experience going about it the way they do (since
the X-1). It looks like it will take a while to go through all the data and
figure out what material / structure changes they need to make. It also makes
a couple of other countries a little antsy flying this type of beast.

------
funthree
it did a barrel roll at 13,000 miles per hour... and corrected itself

~~~
starpilot
It was probably a roll, not a barrel roll since the latter requires a
controlled pitch input.

------
techfiltered
What is secret about something written about publicly?

~~~
timdiggerm
Do you know how to build it? Me neither.

~~~
its_so_on
Wait a second -- neither do I! So if the two of you not knowing how to build
it means it's secret (your point, right?)...then the three of us not knowing
means it's... _TOP SECRET!_

