U.S. military hypersonic aircraft trial scheduled for 2013

PanARMENIAN.Net - The last of four unmanned experimental U.S. military aircraft designed to fly at six times the speed of sound is expected to be tested next year, the program manager said on Wednesday, Oct 24, months after its predecessor broke up during a trial, Reuters reported.

The third test flight of the craft, known as the Waverider or X-51A, broke apart over the Pacific Ocean seconds into a test flight in August. U.S. Air Force officials said at the time they did not know if or when their fourth aircraft would fly.

Preliminary results from an investigation into what went wrong during the August flight indicate that a "random vibration issue" caused one of the control fins to deploy early, the X-51 program manager at the Air Force Research Laboratory, Charlie Brink, told reporters on a conference call.

"I can't say conclusively that's it, but it's looking more and more like the cause," Brink said, adding that investigators quickly ruled out a software or power malfunction as a cause of the aircraft's break up.

The Waverider was designed to reach speeds of Mach 6 or above, six times the speed of sound and fast enough to zoom from New York to London in less than an hour.