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NEW DELHI: India on Wednesday successfully test-fired a highly manoeuvrable version of the 290-km range supersonic cruise missile BrahMos from a naval warship off the coast of Vizag in the Bay of Bengal. "At 9.30 am, the missile blasted off in a pre-designated war scenario taking a 'double-manoeuvre in S-form' hitting the designated target ship just one meter above water line. The sheer velocity and power of the hit made the missile rip through the ship's hull," BrahMos Aerospace CEO Sivathanu Pillai said on Wednesday. This is the 34th launch of BrahMos after the successful October launch from INS Teg...

Now that the dust has settled in the New Mexico desert where supersonic skydiver "Fearless Felix" Baumgartner landed safely on his feet, researchers are exhilarated over the possibility his feat could someday help save the lives of pilots and space travelers in a disaster.

In retrospect, the Concorde was doomed from the start. Besides being fuel-hungry, the legendary supersonic jet created sonic booms that were simply too loud for comfort, which prevented the aircraft from flying lucrative overland routes, such as New York to Los Angeles, and kept it an expensive luxury. More than a decade after Concorde was retired, researchers are investigating new ways to build supersonic aircraft by going back to an old idea: the biplane. New research, most recently from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, shows promise for solving both major challenges to supersonic transports—cost and noise—by turning to this configuration...

'a game-changer' British multinational BAE Systems has developed a functioning prototype of a new artillery piece for the US Navy's testing purposes, and what it does is propel a specially-designed shell to high supersonic velocities (cca 5600 mph) via powerful magnetic rails. At Mach 7, the projectile arrives almost three times as fast as the Navy's current big guns can deliver one, and at an astonishing range of 50-100 nautical miles (!) The new technology is now undergoing testing in Virginia. Considering that today's naval artillery can reach only about 15 mi -and that long-range cruise missiles poke-along at...

BALASORE: In a first in the military world, the BrahMos cruise missile achieved a supersonic dive after being fired from a defence base in Orissa as part of the trials to fine-tune its capabilities, an official said. 'The missile flew in the designated complex trajectory conducting large manoeuvres and steep dive. This is the first time in the world that a supersonic dive has been realised by a cruise missile,' said BrahMos Aerospace spokesperson Praveen Pathak. The Indian armed forces termed it a 'perfectly precise flight', he added. The 290-km range BrahMos missile, which can travel 2.8 times the speed...

F-35 Joint Strike Fighter short takeoff/vertical landing (STOVL) variant flew faster than the speed of sound for the first time June 10, achieving a significant milestone. The aircraft accelerated to Mach 1.07 (727 miles per hour) on the first in a long series of planned supersonic flights. "For the first time in military aviation history, supersonic, radar-evading stealth comes with short takeoff/vertical landing capability," said Bob Price, Lockheed Martin's F-35 U.S. Marine Corps program manager. "The supersonic F-35B can deploy from small ships and austere bases near front-line combat zones, greatly enhancing combat air support with higher sortie-generation rates." The...

As Joe Kittinger found out in 1960, it’s hard to jump from a height of 102,800 feet—let alone in an open gondola, in minus 100 F temperatures, wearing 160 pounds of equipment—and survive. As Michele Fournier reaffirmed this weekend on an airfield in Saskatchewan, it’s even more difficult to break that 50-year-old record for the highest free fall. The French parachutist attempted, for the fourth time, to rise to a height of 130,000 feet in a pressurized capsule dangling beneath a high-altitude air balloon, then step out of it and hurtle toward Earth at supersonic speed, breaking the sound barrier....

The Indian Navy has successfully test-fired the BrahMos supersonic anti-ship cruise missile, the Indian-Russian joint venture BrahMos Aerospace said on Sunday. The missile, fired from a new vertical launch pad, hit the target in the Bay of Bengal, BrahMos Aerospace said. The BrahMos missile has a range of 290 km (180 miles) and can carry a conventional warhead of up to 300 kg (660 lbs). It can effectively engage ground targets from an altitude as low as 10 meters (30 feet) and has a top speed of Mach 2.8, which is about three times faster than the U.S.-made subsonic Tomahawk...

In a flight test reminiscent of the early days of the historic X-15 program 50 years earlier, the X-51A Waverider was carried aloft for the first time over Edwards Air Force Base, Calif., Wednesday, Dec. 9 by an Air Force Flight Test Center B-52H Stratofortress. The "captive carry" test was a key milestone in preparation for the X-51 to light its supersonic combustion ramjet engine and propel the WaverRider at hypersonic speed for about 5 minutes, before plunging into the Pacific Ocean. That flight test is currently planned in about two months, said Charlie Brink, X-51A program manager with the...

A privately funded team will attempt this year to break a 50-year-old record for the highest-altitude parachute jump, floating a balloon well into the stratosphere before its pilot leaps out for a supersonic free fall. The team behind the Red Bull Stratos mission announced details of the attempt here Friday morning in a media briefing. If all goes as planned, a towering helium balloon will loft Austrian-born skydiver and BASE jumper Felix Baumgartner, 40, roughly 37 kilometers into the air before he begins his descent. (BASE stands for "buildings, antennas, spans, Earth"—the places and structures from which a BASE parachutist...

Here’s Felix Baumgartner’s plan: Float a balloon to 120,000 feet. Jump out. Break the sound barrier. Don’t die. Simple, right? If Baumgartner, a world famous base jumper and skydiver, pulls off the feat, he’ll set the record for the world’s highest jump and become the first person to break the sound barrier with his body alone. During the jump, he’ll also collect data on how the human body reacts to a fall from such heights, which could be useful for planning orbital escape plans for future space tourists and astronauts. Dubbed the Red Bull Stratos and sponsored by the...

Russia and India will start the development of a new supersonic missile nearly invincible to interception. No army in the world has anything similar to it. The sum of the investment has not been defined yet, but it can be expected to reach billions of dollars. The missile is to become a successor of the supersonic missile BrahMos (known as Yahont in the Russian army) that is now installed on ships, land missile complexes and may soon be installed on Su-30 MKI fighter jets and submarines. This possibility was discussed on Tuesday at the meeting of an intergovernmental committee on...

The F-35 Joint Strike Fighter flew supersonic for the first time yesterday, achieving another milestone. The aircraft accelerated to Mach 1.05, or about 680 miles per hour. The test validated the F-35 Lightning II's capability to operate beyond the speed of sound and was accomplished with a full internal load of weapons on the one-hour flight. "The F-35 transitioned from subsonic to supersonic just as our engineers and our computer modeling had predicted," said Jon Beesley. "I continue to be impressed with the aircraft's power and strong acceleration, and I'm pleased that its precise handling qualities are retained in supersonic...

As could be expected, it's certainly an ungainly thing - the rocket-shaped vehicle measures 12.8 meters long and weighs 6400 kg - but it may be more unusual than we anticipated. Though details are a bit sketchy, the press release mentions the Bloodhound SSC is powered by an "exotic combination" of jet, rocket, and piston-engine power. Now that's a hybrid... From what we understand, the rocket's charged mainly with propelling the car to high speeds. Though it's good for that, it's unable to hold selected speeds, hence the addition of a Eurojet EJ200 jet engine kicks in. The piston engine?...

The British team that claimed the land speed record in 1997, taking a car through the sound barrier for the first time, is planning to go even faster. RAF pilot Andy Green made history in 1997 when he drove the Thrust SSC jet-powered vehicle at 763mph (1,228km/h). Now he intends to get behind the wheel of a car that is capable of reaching 1,000mph (1,610km/h). Known as Bloodhound, the new car will be powered by a rocket bolted to a Typhoon-Eurofighter jet engine. The team-members have been working on the concept for the past 18 months and expect to be...

Taiwan warship gets supersonic missiles TAIPEI—Taiwan has installed locally developed anti-ship missiles on a warship in a significant boost of its naval defense against rival China, a report said Friday. The supersonic Hsiung-feng (Brave Wind) 3 missiles were seen on the Perry-class Cheng Kung frigate in the southern port of Tsoying on Thursday, said the United Daily News. The paper quoted commander-in-chief Admiral Wang Li-shen as saying that defense authorities will determine how to deploy the missiles and on which warships after testing is completed. It also cited an unnamed navy official as saying that the authorities hope to wrap...

Photo #1: 060728-N-7241L-026 Atlantic Ocean (July 28, 2006) - An F-14D Tomcat, aircraft number 100, assigned to the "Tomcatters" of Fighter Squadron Three One (VF-31) makes a near supersonic fly-by above the flight deck of USS Theodore Roosevelt (CVN 71). The F-14 will officially retire in September 2006, after 32 years of service to the fleet. Theodore Roosevelt is completing Joint Task Force Exercises with USS Dwight D. Eisenhower (CVN 69). U.S. Navy Photo by Mass Communication Specialist 3rd Class Nathan Laird (RELEASED). Caption Source: http://www.navy.mil/view_single.asp?id=37555 - Big Image Link: http://www.navy.mil/management/photodb/photos/060728-N-7241L-026.jpg Photo #2: 060728-N-7241L-015 Atlantic Ocean (July 28, 2006)...

Mach 3 missile advances By Graham Warwick in Washington DC Lockheed Martin is nearing the crit­ical design review on a technology demonstrator for a Mach 3-plus cruise missile that could be air, ship and submarine-launched. The missile would be accelerated from subsonic launch to supersonic cruise by a turbine engine, and could fly 920km (500nm) or more in 15min to attack time-critical targets. The demonstrator is being de­signed for the US Office of Naval Research (ONR) under the Revolutionary Approach to Time-critical Long-Range Strike (RATTLRS) project. Lockheed’s Skunk Works is prime contractor. Rolls-Royce’s Liberty Works is building the YJ102R high-Mach...

For years, the U.S. military has wanted a plane that could loiter just outside enemy territory for more than a dozen hours and, on command, hurtle toward a target faster than the speed of sound. And then level it. But aircraft that excel at subsonic flight are inefficient at Mach speeds, and vice versa. The answer is Switchblade, an unmanned, shape-changing plane concept under development by Northrop Grumman. When completed (target date: 2020), it will cruise with its 200-foot-long wing perpendicular to its engines like a normal airplane. But just before the craft breaks the sound barrier, its single wing...

Northrop Grumman Corp. will design a supersonic experimental aircraft that employs a wing that varies position for most efficient flight performance under a $10.3 million contract from the Pentagon's Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency. The oblique flying wing program aims to design and conduct the first-ever flight tests of a tailless, supersonic, variable sweep oblique flying wing... In an oblique wing aircraft, one wing of the aircraft is swept forward and the other backward in an asymetrical configuration, which varies with flight speed. The wing, also known as a "scissors wing," pivots over a center point, shifting angle as the...

At the dawn of the atomic age, scientists began work on what might have been the nastiest weapon ever conceived.Those who came of age during the era of Three Mile Island and Chernobyl are probably too young to remember the happy days when "our friend the atom" promised electricity too cheap to meter and cars that would run forever without a fill-up. With atom-powered subs like the Nautilus cruising under the polar icecap in the mid-1950s, could anyone doubt that atom-powered rocketships, airplanes, and even automobiles would be far behind? A funny thing happened to that dream on its way...

As part of the advanced technology initiative in `air breathing propulsion', the Trivandrum-based Vikram Sarabhai Space Centre of ISRO has successfully carried out the design, development, characterisation and realisation of the Supersonic Combustion Ramjet (SCRAMJET). Through a series of grounds tests, a stable supersonic combustion has been demonstrated for nearly seven seconds with an inlet `Mach numbers' of six (i.E six times the speed of sound), according to an ISRO release here today. `Air-breathing rocket systems' are ones which use the atmospheric oxygen from their surroundings and burn it with the stored on-board fuel for producing the forward thrust in...

Shock waves play important roles in modern physics and engineering, military operations, materials processing and medicine. Historically, the study of shock waves has taught us much about the properties of gases and material responses to a sudden energy input, and has contributed to the development of gas lasers and the field of plasma dynamics. Recent attacks by terrorists using improvised explosive devices have reinforced the importance of understanding blasts, explosions and the resulting shock waves. These waves can be powerfully damaging in their own right, but in addition, studying them can help to quantify their originating explosions and can provide...

Breaking the sound barrier—again Dec 8th 2005From The Economist print editionTransport: A new breed of supersonic business jets, without Concorde's drawbacks, could soon be taking to the skies IMAGINE being able to cross the Atlantic in less than three and a half hours. You could fly from London to New York for a meeting and still be home in time for dinner. It used to be possible, before the demise of Concorde, of course. But while Concorde has passed into history, the dream of supersonic travel is alive and well. Several firms are now racing to develop a new breed...

Petitioners argue Israel Air Force supersonic booms over Gaza Strip causing anxiety to children; court petitioned to halt booms The Gaza Community Mental Health Program and the "Physicians for Human Rights - Israel’ group have petitioned the High Court of Justice to immediately halt Israel Air Force supersonic booms over the Gaza Strip during flights over the area. The petition included the professional opinion of psychiatrists who argued that the booms are causing considerable emotional damage to the Palestinian population and children in particular. Physicians argue that the supersonic booms heard in Gaza overnight have caused anxiety to children who...

TOKYO Japan's space agency plans to launch an arrow-shaped airplane at twice the speed of sound high over the Australian outback as early as next month in a crucial test of the country's push to develop a supersonic successor to the retired Concorde. The test follows a three-year hiatus since the first experimental flight of the unmanned aircraft, dubbed the next-generation supersonic transport, prematurely separated from its booster rocket and crashed into the desert. "We've made some improvements so that won't happen again," Takaaki Akuto, a spokesman for the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency, said Tuesday in Tokyo. "This is a...

South Korea is to sell supersonic fighters at $100 (101,000 won) per jet. It may be hard to believe, but it’s no lie. The fighter jets to be sold at such a giveaway price are F-5A/Bs, which are being retired from their 40-year-long service this month. The Ministry of National Defense and Korea Aerospace Industries (KAI) said Sunday they considered selling the retired aircraft, which opened the era of supersonic fighters for the Korean Air Force in 1965, to foreign nations including Mexico and Poland. ``We have about 50 F-5A/B fighter jets at the moment, half of which are used...

United States Navy (USN) F-14B Tomcat assigned to the "Swordsmen" of Fighter Squadron Three Two (VF-32)with its stylish Prandtl-Glauert condensation cloud on March 30, 2005 in the Mediterranean Sea. The PhotographerPhotographer's Mate 3rd Class Justin S. Osborne, USNThe SourceNavy NewsStand - Eye on the Fleet Photo Gallery, USNhttp://www.news.navy.mil/view_single.asp?id=23503, USN Image ID: 050330-N-0382O-503 The Big Image Linkhttp://www.news.navy.mil/management/photodb/photos/050330-N-0382O-503.jpg

TOKYO (AP) -- Japan and France are jointly developing a new supersonic passenger plane to succeed the retired Concorde, but with up to three times as many seats and the potential to fly the Tokyo-to-New York route in six hours, officials and reports said Wednesday. Defense contractors and engineering companies from the two countries are expected to split an annual investment of about 200 million yen ($1.84 million) for research over the next three years to build the faster-than-sound plane, Japan's Trade Ministry said in a statement. The agreement was signed at the Paris Air Show Tuesday. The Japanese companies...

Orbital Sciences said Tuesday that it successfully flight-tested the GQM-163A "Coyote" Supersonic Sea-Skimming Target (SSST) system for the United States Naval Air Systems Command (NAVAIR) on May 18, 2004. The flight test, conducted at the Navy's missile test range in southern California, is part of a series of flights Orbital will conduct under the company's SSST Engineering and Manufacturing Development (EMD) contract from NAVAIR. Orbital was awarded the EMD contract in 2000 to meet the Navy's requirement for an affordable SSST to simulate supersonic anti-ship cruise missiles for fleet training and weapon systems research, development, test and evaluation. The GQM-163A...

WASHINGTON, March 17 (AFP) - NASA (news - web sites) announced plans to launch a supersonic drone later this month designed to fly 6,000 miles (10,000 km) per hour, nearly three times the standing jet airspeed record. The X-43A prototype, to be launched at Edwards Air Force Base in California on March 27, supercedes one that crashed in 2001 tests. NASA said the flight could break the speed record for a jet engine and provide greater access to space. The current airspeed record, 3,529 kilometers (2,193 miles) per hour, or Mach 3.2, has been held by the SR-71 "Blackbird" spy...

4/30/2003 - HOLLOMAN AIR FORCE BASE, N.M. (AFPN) -- A 192-pound, fully instrumented Missile Defense Agency payload traveled a little more than three miles in 6.04 seconds April 29, validating Holloman's high-speed test track hypersonic upgrades and setting a world land speed record. Air Force Materiel Command experts conducted the test in New Mexico's Tularosa Basin where Air Force officials witnessed a four-stage, rail-bound rocket sled reach Mach 8.5 or 6,416 mph. That equates to more than 31 football fields per second. The sled broke the standing world land speed record of Mach 8.1 for travel on rails, also set...

WASHINGTON (AFP) - US scientists are trying to develop a new superfast missile that would be able to strike distant targets with lightning speed, all but denying future enemies of Washington a chance to escape, according to people familiar with the project. The highly-classified program, whose origins go back to the early 1980s, has taken on added importance in the wake of two daring, albeit inconclusive, recent attempts by the US military to kill Iraqi President Saddam Hussein. On March 20 and April 7, US forces used cruise missiles and bunker-busting bombs against two locations in Baghdad where intelligence...

CONCORDE'S days are numbered because it is not making enough money, it was revealed yesterday. British Airways is said to be considering retiring it early. The famous drop-nosed jet has struggled to attract passengers for £8,000 return flights to the US since an Air France Concorde crashed in Paris killing 114 people in 2000. Only five of BA's seven Concordes are in service. Now the 15 Concorde captains and nine first officers have been told they will be rostered for other flights. Bosses have informed ten of 22 senior engineers they will be redeployed on other planes or have...