The significance is the wind tunnel, which allows them to repeatedly test and adjust the hypersonic scramjet design on the ground, in a highly cost effective way.
So the competitors must invest on similar infrastructure to catch up.
I hope it can help bankrupt the competitors sooner.
Agreed.
Guys sitting in the front rows want something that could reach the US west coast in less than 14 minutes.
China builds world's fastest wind tunnel to test weapons that could strike US within 14 minutes
Published Wed, Nov 15 2017 • 8:45 PM EST
Stephen Chen
China is building the world's fastest wind tunnel to simulate hypersonic flight at speeds of up to 12 kilometres per second.
A hypersonic vehicle flying at this speed from China could reach the west coast of the
United States in less than 14 minutes.
Zhao Wei, a senior scientist working on the project, said researchers aimed to
have the facility up and running by around 2020 to meet the pressing demand of China's hypersonic weapon development programme.
"It will boost the engineering application of hypersonic technology, mostly in military sectors, by duplicating the environment of extreme hypersonic flights, so problems can be discovered and solved on the ground," said Zhao, a deputy director of the State Key Laboratory of High Temperature Gas Dynamics at the Chinese Academy of Sciences in Beijing.
The ground tests will significantly reduce the risk of failure when test flights of hypersonic aircraft start.
The world's most powerful wind tunnel at present is America's LENX-X facility in Buffalo, New York state, which operates at speeds of up to 10 kilometres per second – 30 times the speed of sound.
Hypersonic aircraft are defined as vehicles that travel of speeds of Mach 5, five times the speed of sound, or above.
The US military tested HTV-2, a Mach 20 unmanned aircraft in 2011 but the hypersonic flight lasted only a few minutes before the vehicle crashed in to the Pacific Ocean.
In March China conducted seven successful test flights of its hypersonic glider WU-14, also known as the DF-ZF, at speeds of between Mach 5 and Mach 10.
Other countries including
Russia,
India and
Australia have also tested some early prototypes of the aircraft, which could be used to deliver missiles including nuclear weapons.
"China and the US have started a hypersonic race," said Wu Dafang, professor at the school of aeronautic science and engineering at Beihang University in Beijing who received a national technology award for the invention of a new heat shield used on hypersonic vehicles in 2013.
Wu has worked on the development of hypersonic cruise missiles, a near space vehicle, high-speed drones and other possible weapons for the People's Liberation Army.
He said there were a number of hypersonic wind tunnels in mainland China which had helped ensure the high success rate of its hypersonic weapon tests.
The new wind tunnel will be "one of the most powerful and advanced ground test facilities for hypersonic vehicles in the world", said Wu, who was not involved in the project.
"This is definitely good news for us. I look forward to its completion," he added.
https://www.cnbc.com/2017/11/15/chi...s-that-could-strike-us-within-14-minutes.html
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