Chapter 1598: Superb, but not completely superb

Prabhakar did not stay here any longer, but decisively handed over the "task" of dealing with subsequent media inquiries to a dedicated press officer, and he and Woodruff quickly left the noisy tower.

The two walked down the stairs and came to the empty tarmac.

The afternoon sun is a bit dazzling.

Not far away, the F-15C fighter jet "83-0042" which had just completed its launch mission had quietly come to a stop.

Pilot Lt. Col. Thomas Furning stood by the wing, accepting congratulations from several ground crew members and a Navy liaison officer.

"Lieutenant Colonel." Woodruff walked over first. "Well done, a very exciting launch operation!"

Prabhakar followed suit: "A textbook flight, Commander. You executed the mission perfectly."

"Thank you, sir." Lieutenant Colonel Furnin saluted the two men first, then responded politely, "I'm glad you can complete the test."

After a few pleasantries, when the liaison officer left temporarily to deal with documents, the expression on Lieutenant Colonel Verning's face became serious.

He looked at Woodruff, then turned to Prabhakar and lowered his voice:

"Sir, frankly speaking, in my personal professional opinion, the current HMMS... has almost no practical value."

The smile on Woodruff's face froze instantly, and his brows wrinkled slightly, as if he wanted to say something.

After all, even if we don’t consider the speed issue, this is an air-launched heavy weapon with good performance.

But Prabhakar raised his hand to stop him:

"Tell me your reasons, Lieutenant Colonel."

Verning has already organized the language:

"After the aircraft was loaded with bombs, the controllability was worse than I expected before takeoff. The joystick was as heavy as if it was filled with lead and was extremely sensitive to any crosswind disturbance, requiring the pilot to continuously devote a lot of energy to compensate."

"The most fatal thing is the launch window." He emphasized, "Most active pilots cannot accurately launch the missile at that point every time without long-term special training... If there is a slight deviation, the risk of missile ignition failure or attitude loss of control will increase dramatically."

For a perfect weapon, this information should be told to the pilot by the developer.

But the development of HMMS is clearly not perfect.

Woodruff's face looked unhappy, but this time he had no intention of refutation.

Prabhakar asked thoughtfully: "What if... we relax some of the launch conditions? For example, allow launch in a more stable state?"

Verning shook his head helplessly: "I'm afraid it's not 'some' that need to be relaxed, but a lot. The ideal situation is to be able to drop it like a normal bomb in a horizontal cruising state."

"This..." Prabhakar glanced at Woodruff, "I'm afraid it will be difficult."

Verning pointed to the F-83C No. 0042-15 behind him.

"The pilot problem can be solved through training, but the average age of the F-15C fleet is close to 30 years, and most aircraft find it difficult to frequently perform this kind of high-G climb with bombs..."

There was no need for him to continue talking about the following questions.

The F22 and F35 obviously don't have the capability to carry such a thing.

Although the F15E is also an F15, it is much heavier than the F15C and is not capable of completing the throwing mission.

Prabhakar listened in silence but could not offer a solution for a while.

Woodruff was also lost in thought.

He is a naval officer.

And in the list of aircraft of the Navy Air Force, there is not even the F15E...

……

Just then, their conversation was interrupted by the distinctive hum of propellers spinning at high speed, which came from far away.

When they looked up, they saw a small plane with blue and white paint and an appearance similar to the Bombardier DHC-8 regional airliner appear on the skyline.

It looked like just an ordinary VIP transport plane.

But the striking long strips of phased array antennas on both sides of its belly exposed its identity.

E-9A "Sightseeker" multi-purpose telemetry observation aircraft.

"Lieutenant Colonel, your observations and opinions are very valuable. We will bring your suggestions back to the project team and carefully evaluate the optimization space of the HMMS mounting and launch procedures." Woodruff turned to Vernin and said, "Thank you again for your outstanding performance."

Furning saluted the two again and left decisively.

A few minutes later, the E-9A landed smoothly on the runway.

After taxiing for a distance, it stopped at the designated parking space.

The hatch opened, and three engineers in casual clothes but with capable looks quickly jumped down the gangway and walked towards Prabhakar and Woodruff.

"Sir!" The leading engineer solemnly handed a palm-sized black metal data box with a physical lock to Prabhakar. "Raw telemetry data, fully recorded throughout the process, without any processing."

In fact, considering the flight distance of HMMS in this test, the telemetry information could have been transmitted back directly.

But for the sake of safety, Prabhakar chose to dispatch an E9A, and only this E9A could obtain the real telemetry data of HMMS.

“Thank you for your hard work.” Prabhakar took the cold and heavy box and nodded.

The two senior officials carried the black box and walked quickly with the engineers to an inconspicuous small building inside the base - a data analysis center set up specifically for this test.

An engineer who had just gotten off the E-9A sat down in front of the main console, and Prabhakar personally connected the black data box to a dedicated computer interface that was physically isolated from the external network.

"The data interface is ready, starting to export raw data stream."

"The decryption process is running normally..."

"Import data into analysis software...begin analysis..."

"..."

Telemetry parameters with precise time stamps appeared on the screen one by one: pressure, temperature, acceleration, rudder angle, GPS coordinates...

And most importantly – speed.

When it comes to the realm of hypersonics, the slight difference between airspeed and ground speed is no longer that important.

And the traditional Pitot tube system is not suitable for measurements in this range.

The engineer operated the software skillfully and quickly drew a new speed-time curve on the big screen.

It was completely different from the smooth curves seen on the tower before, it was full of tiny burrs and fluctuations.

Everyone's eyes were fixed on the highest point of the curve.

The engineer zoomed in on the area and overlaid a fine grid of coordinates. The curve climbed up hard, peaked at a certain point, and then began to dip slightly.

The engineer positioned the cursor at the peak value, and the precise value was automatically displayed next to it:

3805.89 MPH

The room fell into silence.

Woodruff stared at the number, his face showing no emotion.

Prabhakar also had a blank expression.

This is a rather subtle number.

If calculated according to the actual speed of sound at high altitude, it has undoubtedly broken through the "barrier" of Mach number 5.0.

But it certainly does not meet the Department of Defense's initial demand for "hypersonic speed".

Of course, the so-called "Mach 6.0" is purely a "masterpiece" of data processing and display strategy.

“Sir,” the engineer reported, “technically speaking, it reached its peak at around 73.2 seconds, and the calculated value is… very, very close to Mach 5.0, but based on our error analysis model, we can’t be 100% sure that it has crossed the critical point.”

“Got it.” Prabhakar nodded. “What’s the average speed?”

The engineers worked quickly and identified a period of data from the late stage of the rocket engine's operation to before it was shut down.

"The entire flight lasted approximately 13 minutes, during which the average speed was... 3300 MPH."

"It's barely... okay." Prabhakar let out a long breath, as if trying to convince himself. "At least it's much better than the previous models that couldn't fly or disintegrated mid-flight, which shows that the design of the solid rocket engine is feasible."

"In fact, there is still room for optimization of the fuel formula of HMMS, so it is definitely not a problem to break through 5.0 in the end." Woodruff also added, "I will ask the project team to reformulate the propellant before the second test to strive to improve some performance..."

"..."

"Todd, proceed as planned. Use the report and data we prepared." Prabhakar did not respond, but changed the subject. "The media has already set the tone as 'success'. Congress and the White House also need a 'success'. The most important thing now is to pass smoothly and save time and budget."

She walked to the main console and leaned over to personally examine the "official" test summary report that was about to be printed out.

It clearly states "Peak speed: ~6.0 Mach; Hit accuracy: <5 meters CEP; Hypersonic strike capability verified."

"Seal the original data and archive it at the highest level. No one needs to know what the 'Lookout' saw today except us and a very small number of core personnel." She stood up and said to Woodruff in an unquestionable tone, "The most urgent task is to complete this report and submit it to the Pentagon."

"As for the rest... we'll talk about it later."