How Fast Is Hypersonic Flight And How Does It Work? – SlashGear

Hypersonic flight travels at more than five times the speed of sound. Mach 5 and above is deemed hypersonic. Mark Lewis of the Science and Technology Policy Institute in Washington explained in 2018, per NASA (always at the forefront of all things aeronautics), that this is generally understood to be a speed of 3,806 mph (6,126 kmph).

Flying Magazine states that, by contrast, the average commercial flight carries passengers at a cruising pace of up to approximately 600 mph (965.6 kmph). Hypersonic flight, is more than a sixfold increase in speed. Some aircraft have proven to be capable of much greater speeds than even that. In 2011, Space reported that the Falcon Hypersonic Technology Vehicle 2 embarked on a test flight from Vandenberg Air Force Base. DARPA’s Regina Dugan boasted, “HTV-2 demonstrated stable, aerodynamically controlled Mach 20 hypersonic flight for approximately three minutes.” According to the outlet, Mach 20 amounts to, approximately, an extraordinary around 15,000 mph.

Needless to say, travel at these sorts of speeds would be an incredible boon in some areas. Most plainly, flight times would be cut immensely. Defense company BAE Systems states that a Mach 5 flight to Melbourne from Adelaide in Australia might last just six minutes. As tempting as super-short flights may be, though, hypersonic flight is a tricky beast indeed. Here’s how it works, and why the average airline won’t be rocketing jetsetters around the world just yet.