Message posted by Magoo on April 19, 2001 at 16:16:33 PST:
There's one sentence in this article that reads... "If all goes as planned, the flight will crumble the decades-old world aviation record for an air-breathing craft established by the historic SR-71 Blackbird." I feel I need to add a couple of qualifications to that statement... * The SR-71 takes off and lands under its own power - * The SR-71 had a human crew and an operational mission - The X-43 is unmanned and a test-bed only. * The SR-71 first flew 37 years ago and completed thousands of operational intelligence flights over the next three decades - The X-43 hasn't flown yet, and an operational version is still 10+ years away! Magoo
The X-43 will be boosted by a rocket that is dropped from a mother aircraft.
Not that I'm biased or anything! ;-)
In Reply to: X-43 Article posted by zipper on April 19, 2001 at 14:09:42 PST:
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