Boeing X-43 A

HISTORY OF THE PROJECT:

The NASA X-43 was an experimental unmanned hypersonic aircraft with multiple planned scale variations meant to test various aspects of hypersonic flight. It was part of the X-plane series and specifically of NASA's Hyper-X program. It set several airspeed records for jet aircraft. The X-43 is the fastest aircraft on record at approximately Mach 9.6.
The X-43A aircraft was a small unpiloted test vehicle measuring just over 3.7 m (12 ft) in length. The vehicle was a lifting body design, where the body of the aircraft provides a significant amount of lift for flight, rather than relying on wings. The aircraft weighed roughly 1,400 kg (3,000 lb). The X-43A was designed to be fully controllable in high-speed flight, even when gliding without propulsion. However, the aircraft was not designed to land and be recovered. Test vehicles crashed into the Pacific Ocean when the test was over.
Traveling at Mach speeds produces a lot of heat due to the compression shock waves involved in supersonic aerodynamic drag. At high Mach speeds, heat can become so intense that metal portions of the airframe could melt. The X-43A compensated for this by cycling water behind the engine cowl and sidewall leading edges, cooling those surfaces. In tests, the water circulation was activated at about Mach 3.

HOW TO USE IT:

• AG 1 Scramjet (to start the engine);
• AG 2 Gyroscope (to control the aircraft);
• AG 10 System Start (to activate telemetry).
  

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FOR SIMPLE AND BETTER CONTROL OF THE AIRCRAFT USE THE INTERACTIVE NAVIGATION SPHERE!