Video: Hypersonic X-51A Waverider - Make Go Fast!

 A pretty big deal of a test flight is scheduled to take place in just a couple days, on Tuesday May 25, 2010, as the Boeing X-51A Waverider unmanned hypersonic test aircraft will be dropped from a B-52 at 50,000 feet over the Pacific Ocean to hopefully show true viability for air breathing scramjet (supersonic combustion ramjet) power.  On the flight, the X-51A will initially be powered by a solid rocket booster up to about Mach 4.5 when the scramjet will be lit and accelerate the vehicle up to around Mach 6. The video above does a great job of explaining the program details.

 The short video below shows a nice animation of how the drop from the B-52 and the flight itself might look.  It's all pretty interesting stuff, and the results will likely give either the pro-scramjet or anti-scramjet folks some ammunition in their relatively long and hotly contested debate.  It should be a pretty exciting show either way!