An experimental aircraft has set a record for hypersonic flight, flying more than 3 minutes at Mach 6 ? six times the speed of sound.
The X-51A Waverider was released from a B-52 Stratofortress off the southern California coast Wednesday morning, the Air Force reported on its website. Its scramjet engine accelerated the vehicle to Mach 6, and it flew autonomously for 200 seconds before losing acceleration. At that point the test was terminated.
The Air Force said the previous record for a hypersonic scramjet burn was 12 seconds.
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20100527/...ersonic_flight