(From 2011)
It's a BIRD?.. It's a PLANE? It is the latest in war technology. The U.S. Military released new details about their most recent test flight of a prototype aircraft named, Falcon Hypersonic Technology Vehicle 2 (HTV-2). During the August 11th demo flight, officials announced the HTV-2 separated smoothly from the Minotaur IV launch vehicle. It flew on to break records.
HTV-2 is a part of the Conventional Prompt Global Strike which is an advance weapon program. The program is working to develop systems to reach its destination anywhere in the world within one hour of dispatch.
Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) was on-sight to oversee the flight and collect a massive amount of data about the flight. According to DARPA the HTV-2 was able to be controlled for several minutes while traveling effortlessly through the air to about 13,000 mph. Officially billed as the fastest aircraft ever built.
Traveling to speeds up to 13,000 mph there is a grantee of high temperatures inside and out of the aircraft. The HTV-2 reached up to 3,000 degrees Fahrenheit (1,927 degrees Celsius) at times during flight.
DARPA was able to capture the "mouth dropping flight" on amera. DARPA director Regina Dugan stated, “We were fortunate to also obtain handheld camera footage of the HTV-2 flight. It gives us a visceral feel for what it means to fly at Mach 20."
It may be able to set flight but still there are many tweaks to be made to HTV-2. Officials said more than 20 air, land, sea and space data collections systems tracked the craft during the test flight. Now it is onward for our military scientists. The next version awaits. (I find it odd they were so public about this vehicle and test.)
Update: During the test flight, Darpa lost contact with the HTV-2 hypersonic aircraft. After an exhaustive search, nothing was found, and DARPA went silent on the issue. They release this statement, "Range assets have lost telemetry with #HTV2. More to follow.”
Eavesdropper
