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 X-43 will be boosted by a rocket that is dropped from a mother aircraft.

* 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!

Not that I'm biased or anything! ;-)

Magoo

In Reply to: X-43 Article posted by zipper on April 19, 2001 at 14:09:42 PST:

Replies:

• AND the X-15 Thud 04/20/2001, 9:09:56 PST (1)
  • Re: AND the X-15, but... Magoo 04/20/2001, 15:59:08 PST (0)