Chapter 1597 Win First and Talk Later

After HMMS was completely out of sight, Lieutenant Colonel Furnin finally breathed a sigh of relief.

The aircraft he was flying, No. 83-0042, was a "fine old aircraft" selected from the entire US military F15C fleet.

But no matter how exquisite it is, it was produced in the 80s and cannot withstand much tinkering.

If there is a divergent vibration or the engine stops during the test, there is no guarantee that we can return to the base in one piece.

Now that the launch has been successful, what happens next has nothing to do with the pilot.

Thinking of this, Lieutenant Colonel Furning even hummed a little tune in the cockpit.

However, at the same time, inside the tower of the test center, there was a completely different atmosphere.

In the center of the huge radar screen, a bright spot of light was moving eastward at a thrilling speed. The altitude curve continued to rise steeply, eventually stabilizing at around 115000 feet (about 35000 meters) and began to accelerate at full speed.

Erti Prabhakar and Todd Woodruff appeared calm on the surface, but their eyes were fixed on the screen without blinking.

In the VIP seats behind them, several invited congressmen, senior military officials and a few "reliable" media representatives had varying degrees of excitement and anticipation on their faces.

Of course, it is not realistic to ask a group of laymen to convert the Mach number, so Prabhakar specially set up a numerical box representing the HMMS flight Mach number in the lower right corner of the screen.

And it was deliberately magnified.

Even if you sit in the last row, you can see it clearly.

And now, this number is constantly jumping upwards.

4.30...4.54...

……

4.88...4.92...

The double cone does not have resistance magic like the waverider, so the further back you go, the more difficult it is to increase your speed.

Time seemed to be stretched, and every second felt like a century.

Suddenly, the number jumped to 5.02.

"It's over!" Someone exclaimed in a low voice.

But before he finished speaking, it returned to 5.0.

The exclamations stopped abruptly.

Fortunately, the fluctuation only lasted for a moment, and the speed then continued to rise.

"Wow——!"

The VIP seats suddenly erupted into applause and praise.

The lawmakers nodded to each other and smiled with satisfaction, while reporters quickly recorded this "historic moment."

Prabhakar and Woodruff exhaled very lightly almost at the same time.

They turned around and faced the applause, put on appropriate smiles on their faces, and clapped a few times politely.

But deep in their eyes there was only a sense of exhaustion as if a heavy burden had been lifted off their shoulders, without much real joy.

Finally, the Mach number of HMMS stayed at 6.0 and remained stable for about ten seconds.

Then the main rocket engine stopped working.

Although the flight altitude has decreased slightly, the gravitational potential energy is not enough to offset the air resistance, so the speed also begins to decrease.

It is not until the final dive that several auxiliary engines are reignited to provide the final speed.

Woodruff leaned closer to Prabhakar and asked in a voice that only the two of them could hear: "Elti, how much of this number is... room for maneuver?"

He chose a more euphemistic term.

"About 15%-20%." Prabhakar kept his eyes straight, kept a formal smile, and moved his lips slightly. "But the law is not linear, especially when it crosses that critical point... radar echo, atmospheric refraction, data processing algorithm... will introduce subtle deviations."

She paused and lowered her voice: "We can only know the specific situation after the 'Lookout' brings back the original data."

Woodruff's heart sank, and he could only nod slightly and return his gaze to the screen.

At this time, the light spot speed reading representing HMMS has dropped back to 5.2.

Soon, the picture on the big screen switched again.

It is no longer a cold digital curve, but an aerial perspective of a desolate desert shooting range, from a drone hovering in the air.

In the center of the picture is a solitary square building target made of thick concrete.

At the top of the target, a huge white crosshair is extremely eye-catching.

No introduction is needed, everyone knows that is the center point of aiming.

Time passed by minute by minute.

The audience seats were completely silent except for the faint sound of breathing.

Everyone held their breath, waiting for the decisive final result.

Suddenly, a tiny stream of light seemed to appear in the sky.

The next moment, the backward light came straight down from the depths of the sky.

In the camera image at normal speed, it is almost just a fleeting bright line, leaving only a brief afterimage on the retina.

In fact, the missile's terminal speed has dropped to 3100MPH (about 4.3 times the speed of sound).

But humans have no idea about this level of speed.

Anyway, it feels very fast.

Shocking visual effects are the best persuasiveness.

"Boom——"

The drone's camera does not have a sound capture function.

But almost everyone automatically added this loud noise in their brain.

At the target's location, a huge mushroom cloud mixed with gravel and dust suddenly rose up, instantly covering an area of hundreds of meters in radius.

The shaped shock wave spread out from the target, and even the drone camera in the air shook slightly, and the edges of the picture became blurred.

The dust is flying and lingering for a long time.

After a few minutes the dust finally began to settle slowly.

The concrete target that was clearly visible just now now only had a huge, incredibly deep crater left.

The entire building completely collapsed and tore apart from the center, and the debris was thrown all around by the huge impact force.

A slow-motion replay was played on the screen in real time - from a high-speed camera deployed on the ground.

Although it was a little distorted and blurry, a gray afterimage could still be seen, hitting the exact center of the white crosshairs.

In terms of ballistic missile accuracy, the United States does have a very deep technical foundation.

And this hit scene, unsurprisingly, attracted most people's attention.

"Oh my god...it's so accurate..."

"Incredible speed..."

"..."

There were even more enthusiastic cheers and exclamations from the VIP seats. The congressmen stood up and applauded excitedly, while the reporters frantically pressed the shutter.

Woodruff looked at the huge crater and the slow-motion images on the screen, and tried to pull the corners of his mouth upwards.

Prabhakar walked to the prepared microphone at the podium at the right time, with a calm and confident smile on his face.

"Ladies and gentlemen!" Her voice spread throughout the command center through the loudspeaker, suppressing the noise. "As you have seen with your own eyes, HMMS, our Hypersonic Mobile Missile System, has just completed a historic successful test launch!"

Applause started again.

"This is not only a technological victory, but also a redefinition of the rules of the future battlefield! With its unparalleled penetration speed - up to more than Mach 6 - and amazing strike accuracy, HMMS has proven that it will become the sharpest spear in the hands of the US armed forces!"

"It will give us unprecedented precision strike capabilities beyond the defense zone. Any existing defense system will be useless in front of it!"

Her voice is powerful and infectious.

A reporter took the opportunity to ask: "Director Prabhakar, how is this different from the previous DARPA-led X-51A 'Wave Rider' project? The X-51A never seemed to achieve such success?"

The smile on Prabhakar's face did not change at all, and he seemed to be in great ease.

"The X-51A is an important technology exploration project that has accumulated valuable experience for hypersonic research. And HMMS," she raised her voice slightly, "is a solid achievement at the current stage! It proves that the path we have chosen is correct and efficient."

She deftly avoids direct comparisons between the two.

“The success of HMMS is just a solid first step for us. DARPA will continue to work closely with project developers to unswervingly advance the research and development of more advanced and competitive hypersonic weapon systems…”

She swept her eyes across the room with unquestionable authority:

"I can assure you that we will continue to develop more competitive weapons systems to ensure we gain an advantage in potential future wars."

"..."

This strategically-minded speech once again won warm applause.

The generals expressed satisfaction with the test results.

Although we are a few years behind, fortunately we have hypersonic weapons that are comparable to those of the Chinese.

The reporters were cheering in their hearts as they pressed the shutter buttons.

The openness of this test is unparalleled, and they will definitely be able to write a sufficiently eye-catching report.

The congressmen also showed satisfied expressions on their faces.

This time, the funds they approved were not completely wasted.

At least, that's what it looks like...