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The HTV-2 can withstand temperatures of over 2,000°C when re-entering the atmosphere.

US military to trial world's fastest-ever plane

The Falcon HTV-2, which will be launched at 3pm Irish time, can travel at 13,000mph – that’s Dublin to NYC in 14m 42sec.

THE US MILITARY will this afternoon hold a test flight for the fastest plane ever to grace the skies.

The Falcon HTV-2, which has a maximum speed of over 13,000 mph - will begin a trial flight at 3pm Irish time.

The unmanned craft started life as a military research project, which sought to come up with an aircraft that could deliver a bomb to anywhere in the world within an hour.

An inaugural test flight was held in April 2010, with the HTV-2 glider flying 4,800 miles at twenty times the speed of sound. The flight had ended  prematurely when the on-board autopilot detected undesirable behaviour, but the plane landed itself safely.

The craft is launched by rocket in a capsule, before it ‘hatches’ and launches from near-earth orbit.

Because of its high altitude, the launch will not be shown online, but live data will be posted to Twitter by @darpa_news.

More info on its flight can be found at the DARPA military website.

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17 Comments
    Install the app to use these features.
    Mute Chrissy Beanz
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    Aug 11th 2011, 3:26 PM

    Deliver a bomb, anywhere on earth, within an hour!! Not even enough time to pack !!

    47
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    Mute Bridie Greene
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    Aug 11th 2011, 5:39 PM

    Do you get the bomb for free if it takes more than an hour?

    41
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    Mute Michael Dolan
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    Aug 11th 2011, 4:39 PM

    A bomb anywhere in the world within one hour. What a noble aim.

    40
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    Mute neuromancer
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    Aug 11th 2011, 3:40 PM

    Now that’s cool.

    26
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    Mute Aidan M
    Favourite Aidan M
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    Aug 11th 2011, 5:18 PM

    Al lot of money that could be better spent

    17
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    Mute Michael Dolan
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    Aug 11th 2011, 5:38 PM

    It’s amazing what you can buy witha $14 trillion overdraft :D

    22
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    Mute Shirley Cummings
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    Aug 11th 2011, 4:26 PM

    I wanna go!

    13
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    Mute gareth byrne
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    Aug 11th 2011, 5:05 PM

    So will this put a stop to all the UFO sightings at area 51.

    11
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    Mute Leigh Power
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    Aug 11th 2011, 5:13 PM

    Nah, they’ll just claim it’s based on alien technology at Area 51

    11
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    Mute gareth byrne
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    Aug 11th 2011, 5:20 PM

    Is the truth out there?

    9
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    Mute John Paul Hayes
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    Aug 11th 2011, 6:19 PM

    The inaugural test flight had perfect timing! All the planes over Europe were grounded at that time! Conspiracy theorists will love this one. ;p

    8
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    Mute Niall O'Sullivan
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    Aug 11th 2011, 5:00 PM

    I wonder how long they’ve been at this for?

    7
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    Mute Michael Dolan
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    Aug 11th 2011, 5:34 PM

    First test flight was April last year

    3
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    Mute gareth byrne
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    Aug 11th 2011, 8:04 PM

    Iran,you better watch out.The yanks are coming to a town near you.

    5
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    Mute Stephen Harding
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    Aug 11th 2011, 10:18 PM

    And there are kids starving in africa.

    4
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    Mute mr g
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    Aug 11th 2011, 10:10 PM

    The technology sound cool. May it could be developed for commercial air flight. Would be great to go to oz in an hour ..

    4
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    Mute Andrew Regan
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    Aug 11th 2011, 5:56 PM

    Somewhere in a secret military bunker, engineers are sweating profusely.
    “Downrange assets did not reacquire tracking or telemetry. #HTV2 has an autonomous flight termination capability. More to follow.”
    http://twitter.com/#!/DARPA_News/status/101690682204372993

    4
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