美军称接近研制出完整高超音速装备

choi

VOA Chinese, Apr 10, 2014 (video clip)
www.voachinese.com/content/penta ... 140410/1890781.html
("在美国国会参议院军事委员会4月8号星期二举行的一次听证会上，国防部主管研发工程事务的代理助理部长谢弗(Alan Shaffer) 说，去年5月军方实施的一次高超音速飞行试验对未来这个项目的军事应用具有重大意义。* * * 在今年3月众议院军事委员会举行的一场听证会上，主管添置武器装备的国防部次长肯德尔(Frank Kendall)说")

My comment:
(a) There is NO similar news report in the English-version of Voice of America. AS OF NOW (6:30 PM, EDT, APR 10) This is the only report on the two-day-old testimony.
(b) This testimony as well as that in March merely confirms widely circulated rumors. Take notice the last publicized success was May 2013, almost a year ago.
(c) Bill Gertz, Pentagon Goes Hypersonic With Long-Range Rapid Attack Weapon. Washington Times, Mar 19, 2014.
www.washingtontimes.com/news/201 ... with-long/?page=all

Quote:

"Alan R Shaffer, principal deputy assistant defense secretary for research and engineering, told a defense industry conference * * * Hypersonic vehicles can deliver nuclear or conventional payloads in precision strikes against increasingly hard-to-penetrate air defenses of countries like China, Russia and Iran, he said.

"The comments come 2 1/2 months after China’s surprise Jan. 9 test of a new hypersonic glide vehicle, dubbed the Wu-14. * * * Lee Fuell, a technical intelligence specialist with the Air Force National Air and Space Intelligence Center, told a congressional China commission hearing Jan. 31 that China’s hypersonic glide vehicle is a ballistic missile-launched system that glides and maneuvers to its target at speeds up to Mach 10 (about 7,611 mph). * * * Mr Shaffer declined to comment on how the Chinese hypersonic test has changed US plans for hypersonic weapons.

"But the senior weapons research official [in US] said the Pentagon’s most promising hypersonic vehicle is the X-51, a cruise missile-sized weapon powered by an advanced engine called a scramjet. The X-51, developed by Boeing, flies at up to 3,882 mph, or Mach 5.1, and is launched from under the wing of a B-52 bomber. * * * Mr Shaffer said hypersonic weapons, when fully developed, will be less expensive than current jets and cruise missiles powered by complex turbine engines with many parts. A scramjet, or supersonic combusting ramjet, hypersonic vehicle has few moving parts.

(i) Boeing X-51
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boeing_X-51
(WaveRider)

The last several seconds of the video clip carried by the VOA Chinese report (at top) has a close-up view of the X-51, which does not look like the artist's rendition in Wikipedia (which is quite flat).
(ii) scramjet
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scramjet