Building Fast Planes When the sound barrier was broken by a test plane named the Bell X-1 the world was astounded. It was flown by the greatest test pilot America ever had, Chuck Yeager. Chuck Yeager who had a damaged arm at the time kept it secret and took this unsightly, tubby little plane and was the first to break the sound barrier. Later other claims emerged but with little proof so it seem Yeager retained his title as the first man to break the sound barrier. Interestingly, for a while it was thought this was impossible just as breaking the speed of light barrier is thought of today.
Bell X-1 Yeager’s feat was the beginning of a race to build even faster planes and not only in the United States. We had Russia and Europe trying their hands at it. We have to remember the fastest planes in World War II belonged to the Germans. It is hard to say which aircraft are the fastest today because there are several hypersonic aircraft being tested in different countries and none have reached their stated potential yet. An example of this is the Falcon HTV-2 being tested by the United States. It is more of a substitute for an ICBM, Intercontinental missile than a standard aircraft and it is said it is capable of flying at 13,000 miles per hour. The idea was to build an aircraft which could reach any target in the world in one hour. The flight tests were a failure and much of the cause was the high temperature generated by flying that fast. The Chinese claim to have the WU-14 their hypersonic glide vehicle but they claim theirs became operational in 2019. The Chinese name for the craft is DF-ZF. Their vehicle is said to be able to reach speeds of between 3836 and 7,680 miles per hour. The Russians claim to have their own operational hypersonic glide vehicle. It is known by various names such as Avangard, Objekt 4240, YU-71 and YU-74. In a test it is said the vehicle reached 7000 miles per hour. The United States has announced it has successfully tested a hypersonic test vehicle. It was tested in 2017 and flew at about 3800 miles per hour. Due to weapons secrecy in the U.S., we really don’t know much about the American program lately. It could be we have these craft but it was not announced. Remember when we bombed Iraq and people found out for the first time, we had stealth aircraft? The planes was the Lockheed F-117 Nighthawk. Since the hypersonic craft are more like missiles than aircraft I would like to get back to the subject of fast airplanes. One of the things which is hard to believe is a plane from many years ago is still considered the fastest in the world. The plane is from 1966 and yes you guessed it, it was the SR-71 Blackbird. It flew at 3.2 times the speed of sound at was capable of reaching 85000 feet in altitude. It was admitted the plane could reach 2200 miles per hour, but it was suspected it might be able to fly at 3000 miles per hour. At any rate, it is still considered the world’s fastest plane. There seems to be a trend with American fighter craft where they might be getting slower. If we look at our newest fighter the F-35 Lighting II, it is said to be able to reach 1200 miles per hour. Let’s compare this to the best Russian and Chinese fighters. The Russian Sukhoi is said to have a top speed of about 1470 miles per hour and the Chinese Chengdu J-10 is said to have a top speed of 1697 miles per hour. All I can say is what are we doing with such a relatively slow plane. The military has said it makes a great weapons platform for shooting from a distance, but so do does most planes. It is a plane with a lot of faults. Here is the irony of it all, the F-15 Eagle which is an older U.S. fighter which has been updated and has a top speed of 1875 miles per hour which is 675 miles per hour faster than the F-35. If we ever get into a dog fight with the Russians or Chinese flying their best planes and we are flying F-35s, the enemy will be flying circles around us. We better be in a F-15 Eagle. By the way the F-15 Eagle has been in over 100 aerial combats and we have never lost one. The Israelis account for most of these missions. Here is a little irony the F-15 is being upgraded and will serve with the F-35. I hate to say this, but is that because the F-35 is not capable of protecting itself from the newest Chinese and Russian fighters? Lockheed Skunkworks is the secret weapons arm of the company where the A-12 was built. The A-12 looked much like the SR-71 and was the basis for that plane. The designer of the plane, the great Kelly Johnson proposed building a fighter based on the plane. It would have been the fastest fighter in the world even today. The proposed fighter was a modified A-12 and named the YF-12. A test of the plane was conducted by the Air Force in 1963. The plane was approved and 93 were to be constructed, but then Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara held back the funding claiming he needed the money to conduct the Vietnam War. During testing the plane reached over 2000 miles per hour and reached over 80000 feet in altitude. It would have been an incredible fighter plane. Other planes in the past have demonstrated incredible speed. In 1959 a rocket plane was flown by an astronaut named William Knight and it reached a speed of a little over 4400 miles per hour, but rocket planes were not feasible. For one thing they used up their fuel in a minute or two. The Germans proved this in World War II with their rocket interceptors which could get high in the sky, but then had to glide down as they shot at enemy planes. The plane was given the designation of X-15. Lastly, I would like to mention the XB-70 Valkyrie which reached over 2000 miles per hour. This was a bomber which was the prototype bomber which was to replace the B-52. To make a long story short, the XB-70 never went into production due to new missiles being deployed by the Soviets which could reach it and the B-52 is still in use today.
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