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Apart from the fact that an aircraft travelling at Mach 50 in the earth's atmosphere would very probably melt (as far as I know there are no materials available as yet to withstand these temperatures), this speed far exceeds escape velocity (25,000mph), you would have to be very careful not to climb too quickly, otherwise you could find yourself on your way to the moon.Anyway read it and make your own minds up, if anyone has any further ideas or information on the subject please e-mail me as usual and I will update.

by Richard Boylan, Ph.D. On very good authority I have been told in the last year from someone who knows (but obviously must remain unidentified) that the United States Air Force currently has in its hanger(s) (an) aircraft which (is) (are) capable of Mach 50. That's 50 times the speed of sound. If we regard the speed of sound as somewhere around 770 mph, then Mach 50 becomes 38,500 mph. That's three times around the world in two hours. As far as I know, this is an intra-atmospheric aircraft that takes off from a large base in the Far West. Doug,Three of the unacknowledged aircraft in the military inventory are the Aurora, the TR3-A, and the military "prototype" of Lockheed-Martin's X-33, a single-stage-to-orbit aerospace vehicle. Arguing for the craft you describe being the Aurora would be its speed, which would make it capable of achieving, (I believe the German rocket scientists' word is brenschluss), escape velocity, i.e., ability to leave the pull of Earth's gravity.

TOP SECRET TOP SECRET Aurora Program series, which supposedly includes the SR-75 Penetrator which they say was designed to replace the SR-71 Blackbird, and the XR-7 Thunder Dart, which they believe is carried aloft by the Penetrator and launched at 90,000 feet. XR-7 Thunder Dart Powered by two after-burning turbojets and two Pulse Detonation Wave Engines (PDWEs), The XR-7 Thunder Dart is capable of speeds far exceeding Mach 7! It is assumed this hypersonic reconnaissance aircraft is carried aloft and launched at 90,000 feet by the SR-75 Penetrator. The PDWEs, though small and light, are capable of producing more than 55,000 pounds of thrust each. XR-7 turbojets are used for loiter, air-to-air refuelling, and normal takeoffs and landings for flights to operating bases. PDWEs require special fuels, ZIP fuels, and ignition inside the engine takes place through the use of frequency-timed laser light in a system called photon ignition. Most of the fuel aboard the XR-7 is ZIP fuel, while a relatively small amount of JP-4, used in the turbojets, is carried. ZIP fuel also is circulated through the skin of the Thunder Dart to cool the structure before injection into the engines. Both aircraft - the SR-75 and the XR-7 - are equipped with standard arrays of photographic and reconnaissance gear in addition to the top secret remote sensing equpment used to "see" nuclear storage sites of the world's ever-increasing nuclear powers. It is not known who is responsible for deployment of these craft - the USAF denies their existence. Suspected operators include the CIA, the National Reconnaissance Office (NRO) or perhaps a consortium of foreign nations allied in their effort History, "Loud pulsing sounds... loud enough to vibrate your body." Donuts-on-a-rope contrails in the sky. Hypersonic speeds exceeding Mach 7. A sharp triangular shape. And a large plane similar to the SR-71 also seen in the air; what is in our skies?!!It is still secret (as of September 1993) but something new and radical is in the air. Some have called it "Aurora". Others call the system "Senior Smart" and "Senior Citizen".. The XR-7 Thunder Dart is capable of Mach 7+ speeds. It can take off under its own power or be launched from the back of the SR-75. It has two conventional jet engines in its belly and two very powerful, very loud and very different Pulse Detonation Wave Engines on its back. The PDWE units are probably fuelled with liquid methane fuel or what is sometimes called "ZIP" fuels. The turbojets are fuelled with JP-7. The XR-7's primary mission is that of a very high-speed reconnaissance and to gain practical experience in the hypersonic speed regime. This will have application in the development of the High-Speed Civil Transport, or HSCT, program.Rumours have persisted the planes have been flying since, roughly, late 1986 in test and in limited operational use since 1990. Lockheed Aircraft Corporation - the Skunk Works - is said to be the prime contractor with some subcontracting being done by Rockwell. Since the program is classified there is no way to prove this at this time. As best we can determine, the XR-7 spans 42'-10" with a length of 80'-2". The wing leading edge sweep is 75 degrees - an "arrow" indeed. Liquid methane is used to cool the aircraft's skin and the is run through the radiator-like outlets in the tailpipes before being injected into the engine and used for propulsion.Newly developed high temperature ceramic materials are used on all leading edge surfaces. The airplane, at speed and altitude, literally glows with heat generated by Mach 7 flight and has been seen over the United States at night. References For additional information on hypersonic aircraft see the following book: "Aurora - The Pentagon's Secret Hypersonic Spyplane; MII-Tech Series"; Bill Sweetman; Motorbooks International, Osceola, Wisconsin 54020 USA.	Lockheed SR-75 "Penetrator" SR-75 Cockpit SR-75 "Super Valkyrie" XR-7 "Thunderdart"
"Thunderdart" Piggybacked on SR-75	In 1994 the Open Skies Treaty will allow 24 signatory nations to photograph the once secret Groom Lake area. Ground access to Groom Lake is still very limited and it is off-limits to those without proper authority and clearance. You are advised not to visit the installation. Guards are allowed to use deadly force to protect this test facility. The Runway 14-32, is an 18,750' long paved surface with an extension to the north allowing emergency running onto the dry lakebed for an additional 4,950' (approx.). Total runway width is 200'. 100' of that is concrete on the centreline with 50' each side of the concrete as hard asphalt. The runway at the Groom Lake, Nevada, test site is one of the longest paved runways in the world. It is very difficult for any nation to keep sites such as this secret when wonderful technology is in orbit overhead. The Groom Lake, Nevada, test facility is also known as Area-51 or Dreamland. Located 94 miles NNW of Las Vegas, it is rich in aviation history. First built and used for the flight test of Lockheed U-2 spyplanes and the training of Central Intelligence Agency pilots to fly them, it began its secret days in 1955. The base has never been out of public view from hikeable ground locations while the military counted on the remote location of the facility to provide a major part of the security. You simply cannot see the base from any highway in the area. The CIA precursors to the SR-71, the A-11 and A-12, first flew from Groom. They were followed by the F-117 stealth fighter and numerous first flights yet to be revealed. Rumours persist that even extraterrestrial UFOs have been worked on in the Groom area.
The Mystery Continues Analysis not withstanding, a certain measure of agnosticism continues to be appropriate when considering the question of the existence of these various mystery aircraft. Although there is a growing body of evidence that could be interpreted to suggest the existence of one or more advanced aircraft behind the veil of government secrecy, this evidence remains suggestive rather than conclusive. That this should be the case is not surprising, for while the various stratagems of secrecy used to protect advanced weapons programs are imperfect, they are not entirely in vain. It would be surprising if a concerted and well funded effort to hide or obscure the status of such programs were to fail utterly, though acknowledgement of the success of such a secrecy effort would not necessarily imply endorsement of its continuing wisdom. While the preponderance of evidence tends to support the hypothesis that one or two classified aircraft development and testing programs are presently being conducted by the US military, several caveats introduce notes of caution in accepting this hypothesis as proven fact.
Mikoyan M-50 Nuclear Bomber	Aviation Leak and Space Mythology Aviation Week and Space Technology. Although a number of other publications have contributed to the development of this story, the reporting in Aviation Week has been distinguished by its detail, as well as the character of some of the reported characteristics of some of the aircraft, which have ranged from the frankly exotic to the nearly fantastic. While Aviation Week has an established reputation as the authoritative news magazine of the aerospace industry, it cannot be forgotten on occasions its reporting has led humorists to dub it Aviation Leak and Space Mythology. Though its coverage has been marked by authoritative leaks, mythology has occasionally crept into its pages.Perhaps the most memorable instance of mythologizing came in December 1958, when Aviation Week claimed that: "a nuclear-powered bomber is being flight tested in the Soviet Union. Completed about six months ago, this aircraft has been flying in the Moscow area for at least two months. It has been observed both in flight and on the ground by a wide variety of foreign observers from Communist and non-Communist countries." The article further claimed that the aircraft was: "not a flying test bed in the sense that earlier US Air Force and Navy programs had called for installing a nuclear powerplant in a conventional airframe such as the B- 36...solely for test purposes. The Soviet aircraft is a prototype of a design to perform a military mission as a continuous airborne alert warning system and missile launching platform..." Several years later, a prototype of a Soviet conventionally-powered bomber, NATO code-named "Bounder," which never entered production, was found to resemble the schematics given to support the original nuclear airplane revelations. However, this aircraft used conventional propulsion, and to date there is no indication that the Soviets were actually embarked on an aircraft nuclear propulsion program. The established reputation of Aviation Week makes it impossible to dismiss their reporting based on the fact that innaccuaracies on their part are not without precedent. The fact that other publications have provided similar, if perhaps less detailed, reports, must also be taken into account. While there may be questions about the existence of mystery aircraft, there is no doubt concerning the existence of reports of their existence. Thus it is useful to consider mystery aircraft not simply as an engineering product, but also as a sociological phenomena.
An Embarrasment of Riches Various vehicles whose existence has been suggested implies a covert aircraft development program that dwarfs the efforts officially acknowledged by the US government. While one might be prepared to accept the existence of one or two such programs, the bewildering array of exotic vehicles reported in the literature surpasses reasonable expectation. Surely at least some of these are the product of mistaken identity or some other sort of mischief. The entire mystery aircraft phenomenon is characterized by a very low signal to noise ratio. While there may be a signal in there somewhere, there is also clearly a lot of noise. One source of this noise may be honest cases of mistaken identification of conventional phenomena by field observers, or improper interpretation by budget analysts.But the possible role of active disinformation must also be recognized as a potential source of the noise that seems to obscure the signal. Prior secrecy efforts had only limited success in protecting pertinent details of the F-117A, B-2 and A-12 programs, and essentially failed to protect the fact of the existence of these programs.Given this poor track record, it is certainly conceivable that those responsible for protecting both the existence and characteristics of ongoing classified aircraft projects have taken a different approach. Rather than trying to protect a single program that actually exists, perhaps they have chosen to create a series of imaginary decoy programs, which would protect the real aircraft projects in much the way decoys protect ballistic missile warheads from interception by anti-missile defenses. William Scott, whose reports in Aviation Week & Space Technology have provide much of the information on mystery aircraft, concedes: "You have to be extremely cautious. There are a lot of guys who are good at misinformation." The disinformation campaigns launched to persuade Sadam Hussein that the Marines would launch an amphibious assault on Kuwait, or to persuade Hitler that General Patton would launch the main Allied invasion against Callais are notable examples of this venerable gambit. The bewildering array of reports of mystery aircraft complicate the separation of the wheat from the chaff, and suggest the possibility that the abundance of smoke may hide an absence of fire.What is to be made of the various publications in trade journals of analyses of aircraft that seem to all intents and purposes to be Aurora? A number of interpretations seems equally plausible: Perhaps Aurora was indeed canceled in 1985, and these are merely the product of continuing low-level paper studies. Perhaps these are the outward and visible manifestation of an ongoing large-scale development effort that includes flight testing of Aurora aircraft. The Timberwind nuclear rocket program provides precedent for this, with the publication of a number of unclassified technical reports describing the particle-bed reactor development effort, while failing to acknowledge that these were part of the ambitious Timberwind project. This overt activity would provide a useful cover story for any aspects of the covert program that might inadvertently come to public attention.Or perhaps Aurora was indeed canceled in 1985, and these studies have been continued to sustain suspicions to the contrary, thereby obscuring the reality of some other unrelated program. Or possibly these low-level paper studies were the genesis of the entire Aurora story, with this modest effort having been inadvertently confused with reality of some other unrelated program.There is no exit from this wilderness of mirrors. By definition, a successful deception or disinformation effort remains undetected and unsuspected.
Lockheed Martin X-43 Hyper	I came across this piece whilst surfing the web and am not really sure what to make of it. The material claims to be from someone "Who is in the know". Judging by the specifications I find it a little hard to believe that an aircraft that can travel at a speed of 38,000mph using an engine which is pure science fiction (Anti-gravity) that some information has not been leaked. Apart from the fact that an aircraft travelling at Mach 50 in the earth's atmosphere would very probably melt (as far as I know there are no materials available as yet to withstand these temperatures), this speed far exceeds escape velocity (25,000mph), you would have to be very careful not to climb too quickly, otherwise you could find yourself on your way to the moon.Anyway read it and make your own minds up, if anyone has any further ideas or information on the subject please e-mail me as usual and I will update. by Richard Boylan, Ph.D. On very good authority I have been told in the last year from someone who knows (but obviously must remain unidentified) that the United States Air Force currently has in its hanger(s) (an) aircraft which (is) (are) capable of Mach 50. That's 50 times the speed of sound. If we regard the speed of sound as somewhere around 770 mph, then Mach 50 becomes 38,500 mph. That's three times around the world in two hours. As far as I know, this is an intra-atmospheric aircraft that takes off from a large base in the Far West. Doug,Three of the unacknowledged aircraft in the military inventory are the Aurora, the TR3-A, and the military "prototype" of Lockheed-Martin's X-33, a single-stage-to-orbit aerospace vehicle. Arguing for the craft you describe being the Aurora would be its speed, which would make it capable of achieving, (I believe the German rocket scientists' word is brenschluss), escape velocity, i.e., ability to leave the pull of Earth's gravity.
Mach 50 Aircraft National Security Council scientist Dr. Michael Wolf, (of NSC's unacknowledged MJ-12 subcommittee,) has stated that the Aurora can operate on both conventional fuel and antigravity field propulsion systems. He further stated that the Aurora "can travel to the Moon", a statement I doubt he would make unless it has already made the trip. The TR3-A, which has also been identified as the Pumpkinseed, a reference to its thin oval airframe, has been reported to be a superfast plane. Whether the TR3-A is the plane your friend mentioned which can do Mach 50, I can't say. But it is reported to be quick. Lockheed-Martin does not say too much about its winged, delta-shape X-33 VentureStar, the single-stage-to-orbit, reuseable National Spaceplane, except to say that "we are building it." To be at that stage of development for its public-program Spaceplane, clearly Lockheed-Martin has already long since built prototypes, as well as an unacknowledged military version, which I have dubbed the X-33A. The A suffix stands for antigravity. Colonel Donald Ware, USAF (ret.) told me that he recently learned from a three-star General that the X-33 has electrogravitics (antigravity) system on board, [as the unacknowledged military version I estimate exists must surely also have.] This antigravity electrogravitics system has already been operationally proven on the B-2 Stealth bomber, which Colonel Ware has revealed also has electrogravitics system on board. As for the "large base in the West" which your Mach 50 airplane operates from, that leaves several possibilities. If the mystery Mach 50 craft is the Aurora, NSC's Dr. Wolf says that the Aurora operates out of Area 51, (Groom Dry Lake Air Force Station), at the northeast corner of the Nellis AFB Range, north of Las Vegas, Nevada. The late Colonel Steve Wilson, USAF (ret.), Skywatch's founder, stated that military astronauts trained at a secret aerospace academy separate from the regular Air Force Academy at Colorado Springs, Co. These military astronauts operate out of Beale and Vandenberg Air Force Bases, Northern California From those bases, these military astronauts regularly fly trans- atmospherically and into space. One of the aerospace craft they use, Colonel Wilson reported, is the X-33A, a two-man antigravity discoid ship. Whether they also fly the Aurora and the military version of the X-33A spaceplane has not been confirmed, but likely. The distinction between the existence of mystery aircraft and the existence of reports of their existence derives from the distinction between the existence of flying saucers, and the existence of reports of Unidentified Flying Objects. While few accept the existence of flying saucers, none can deny the existence of reports of Unidentified Flying Objects. An understanding of the mystery aircraft phenomena is impossible outside the context of the UFO phenomena, for mystery aircraft remain, despite the best efforts of investigators, reporters, and analysis, Unidentified Flying Objects. Indeed, considered as a sociological and epistemological phenomena. the parallels between reports of flying saucers and reports of mystery aircraft are striking.	Lockheed X-33 Reusable Shuttle Another View
Mikoyan M-50	A Modern Myth of things seen in the sky First, reports of observations of mystery aircraft have coincided with reports of observations of flying saucers. The state of Nevada has been the site of a major UFO flap for the past several years. Indeed, the question of whether an Unidentified Flying Object is reported as a sighting of a mystery aircraft or a flying saucer may have more to do with the predisposition of the individual observer than with the nature of the observed phenomena. Thematic apperception -- "I wouldn't have seen it if I hadn't believed it" -- is a well established element of the psychology of human perception. Second, the nature of many of the mystery aircraft reports are strikingly similar to other UFO reports. Strange lights seen moving erratically or at high speed in the sky have long been core elements of the UFO phenomena. Investigations of flying saucer reports have consistently demonstrated how even experienced and trained observers can misinterpret familiar phenomena seen under unfamiliar (or even familiar) circumstances. Although this precedent cannot exclude the existence of novel aircraft, it does suggest caution in interpreting such reports. Similarly, reports of radars tracking high speed targets were a staple of the early flying saucer literature, though these were subsequently dismissed as resulting from anomalous radar propagation or operator inexperience. The incidence of such reports has declined with the availability of improved equipment and greater operator experience. But anomalous propagation of radar signals, creating false targets on radar screens, is an abiding problem. Reports of intercepted radio conversations that are alleged to emanate from high- performance aircraft, such as Aurora, may instead emanate from pranksters. Such mischief makers have actively propagated flying saucer sightings, and were a major source of the Crop Circle phenomenon in the United Kingdom. Finally, one is struck by the similarity between the cultural significance of the mystery aircraft phenomenon and that of the other Unidentified Flying Object phenomenon, claims of sightings of flying saucers. Aviation has long been one of the distinguishing attributes of American greatness, from Kitty Hawk to Desert Storm. But the economic challenge of Japan, coupled with the declining fortunes of the military aerospace industry, has created growing uncertainties about the future It would be comforting to believe that the decline of America and American aerospace was more apparent than real. It would be reassuring to believe that concealed in the most hidden recesses of the American technostructure were devices of such miraculous capabilities that they will astound the world when at last they are revealed.