I've always thought the champions of speed were the Blackbird and the X-15. Boy was I wrong...
See that little plane attached to the B-52 with the words "Hyper-X"? That there is the current world champion for the airspeed record.
This little guy's job is to detach from the Hyper-X, and accelerate via scramjet, to a whopping top speed of 7,366 mph.
Yep, you read that right. 7,366 mph. In case you didn't already know, the top speed of the SR-71 Blackbird is about 2,193 mph, and the top speed of the X-15 is about 4,520 mph. For reference, traveling at 7,366 mph can take you from America to China in about an hour, whereas if you were flying on a conventional airliner, it would take almost 13 hours if it was a non-stop flight.
If you guys already knew about this, and I'm the only one here that's learnt something absolutely insane today, then that's fine. If you didn't already know this, welcome to the club of people who's jaw has currently dropped to the floor and made an anvil noise.
Edit: ok since everyone seems to be confused about this, I know there are things that are monumentally faster than 7,366mph, such as Voyager I, (38,000+ mph) I.S.S, (17,000+ mph) and other things, but I'm talking about aircraft. It doesn't matter if it's manned or unmanned, it's still an aircraft, which makes the X-43 the current record holder for the Fastest Aircraft, not the fastest manned aircraft or the fastest unmanned aircraft, not the fastest man-made object in general, but the Fastest Aircraft in the world.
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@TheAviator77 this Was over 4 and a half years ago dude
(Still the fastest plane tho)
This is old news
@jasontrodriguez I know
@PannerTerkins he's saying that the x43 is better than the x15
That’s a X15?
@SupremeDorian Lockheed Martin openly announced the development of the sr-72 on there website, the page was deleted when Russia revealed there hypersonic missile, so it's safe to assume it's atleast had one prototype flight
x43 is mach 10
can someone make one ?
@AWESOMENESS360 Good point believe that it’s in the 28 2900s they never say directly the Mach I’m estimating probably in the Mach 4-5 range
@Ultahockey3 It really isn’t though, it’s more than 2,000 mph but it’s less than 3,000, I think it’s safe to say that we can make a ballpark estimate as to what it is.
The SR-71 ACTUAL top speed is still classified
@AWESOMENESS360 this thing is like a paper plane it's so smol
Look, the SR-71 is still the fastest aircraft. The X-43 was basically a missile, and was scrapped because it was unsuccessful due to it crashing to the ground. The X-15 is a cheater because it is powered using rocket engines. The X-15 also was scrapped due to the death of Michael J. Adams, which when flying, entered a supersonic spin, and started accelerating insanely to 15 g’s , 15 miles per second, and exploded. The SR-71 had been involved in an incident, The Baltic Incident, but that was caused by a missile interfering with the engine and destroying it.
Though it is not the fastest, the SR-71 is still the top speed successful aircraft still standing
Although that wasn't known about since after you posted this @AWESOMENESS360
Actually, the Falcon Hyper-sonic Technology Vehicle 2 is the fastest aircraft ever @AWESOMENESS360
Ok...that was awesome
Indeed @Jerba
YEET@shipster
It is, it was launched into space I believe, or at least the stratosphere @Jerba
I know, I’m just pulling strings 😂@AWESOMENESS360
A manhole cover during a nuke test was launched and only seen for one frame of the recording. I have no idea if this is true, but I hope it is, because then we have launch a manhole cover into space with a nuke. (The cover was never found, so that’s why I think it got launched into space.)@AWESOMENESS360
@Jetpackturtle the Helios is a space probe, I'm talking about aircraft. Now if we were talking about fastest man-made object in general, the champion of that contest would be Voyager I, who is currently zooming around at over 38,000mph, or 62,000kph.
Yeah but the whole thing that makes the X-15 so cool is that it's manned; if that doesn't matter than why don't we all just gawk at the Helios 2?
@AWESOMENESS360 thanks but it's missing the whole jaw-dropping part.
HoT wHeElEs BeAt ThAt!