WPAFB delays Pacific flight test for 24 hours

By John Nolan, Staff Writer 5:48 PM Tuesday, May 25, 2010

The Air Force has postponed until Wednesday, May 26, a flight test of a scramjet-powered aircraft over the Pacific Ocean, because the Navy spotted a ship in waters near the craft's anticipated plunge into the ocean.

The first hypersonic flight test of the X-51A Waverider aircraft had been scheduled to be done Tuesday, but was postponed 24 hours, officials at Wright-Patterson Air Force Base said. The Air Force Research Laboratory at Wright-Patterson is managing the X-51A program.

A Navy plane's crew spotted a freighter ship in international waters under a block of restricted airspace several hundred miles off the California coast in the vicinity of the X-51A's anticipated splashdown area, the Air Force said.

Weather permitting, the flight test is to be done Wednesday afternoon.

A B-52 aircraft at Edwards Air Force Base, Calif., had been preparing to take off with the X-51A under its wing when Tuesday's flight was scrubbed.

Officials hope that the scramjet (short for supersonic combustion ramjet) engine eventually will make possible speedier transitions between conventional aircraft in the atmosphere and rockets in outer space for satellite deployments and reconnaissance or attack missions. The X-51A's trip is to be the first full-scale flight test of the multi-year program.

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