Chapter 1599 But we can really surpass

The next morning, E Wing of the Pentagon.

Prabhakar and Woodruff sat down at Gates' desk again.

The latter looked more tired than he had been a month ago, and what was spread out in front of him was the "polished" summary of the HMMS test report.

"The peak speed is about Mach 6.0... The average speed is over Mach 5... The accuracy of the hit is extremely high..."

Gates slowly read out the key conclusions of the report, raised his head, and finally showed a slightly relieved smile on his face:

"Great! Congratulations to Director Prabhakar, Director Woodruff, and everyone on the Sea Dragon project team! This is truly an exciting breakthrough."

Prabhakar bowed slightly. “This is a team effort, Mr. Minister.”

"Yes, Minister." Woodruff also quickly agreed, "It proves the feasibility of our technical route."

Gates nodded and gently closed the report.

The relief just now seemed to be fleeting.

"This is an important milestone, and I acknowledge it." His voice became serious again. "But, both of you, please do not forget the original intention of launching the 'Sea Dragon' project, and please do not be paralyzed by this phased victory."

Gates tapped his fingers on the report cover.

"Please always remember that the ultimate goal of the 'Sea Dragon' program is to obtain an air-breathing hypersonic aircraft with intercontinental strike potential and unpredictable flight trajectory. That is what can truly change the strategic balance... The success of HMMS must not be a reason for us to slow down our march towards this ultimate goal."

Seeing that Gates was not as easily deceived as the media and Congress, Woodruff had to cheer up and explain:

"Mr. Minister, according to the test results of the "Hailong" project team, it was found that the forebody design selected by X51A is poorly coordinated with the scramjet engine, so the design standards of the nose cone need to be readjusted..."

"In addition, the original data on the performance of its booster rocket was also seriously overestimated." He deliberately emphasized, "In short, we had a lot of precious time and resources in the early stage, which were wasted on repeated verification and troubleshooting of these false or erroneous data, which directly dragged down the starting point of the design of the 'Hailong' air-breathing prototype."

Gates listened, frowned again, and waved his hand tiredly:

"Todd, these technical details and past project failures are not what I want to hear right now. I understand the difficulties you are facing, but I don't want to hear excuses. I only care about results and timelines."

Woodruff swallowed his saliva:

“The detailed design of the ‘Hailong’ air-breathing demonstrator (HAV) has entered the final stage… We are confident that we can complete the manufacture of the first prototype within 18 months and achieve the first free flight test within 24 months…”

"..."

Finally, Gates nodded slowly.

Woodruff and Prabhakar on the opposite side breathed a sigh of relief at the same time.

But then Gates suddenly changed the subject and dropped a seemingly unrelated message:

"By the way, I have something to inform you... The White House has made a final decision. The X-51A project team will be officially disbanded from today, and Boeing is required to hold the person in charge, Shapur Collinger, accountable."

Woodruff was stunned.

Prabhakar was also surprised.

She couldn't help but ask, "Didn't you say you wanted to conduct a more in-depth investigation? Or... prosecute?"

Gates showed an extremely complicated expression on his face:

"At present, we can only confirm that there was serious confusion, dereliction of duty and possible academic fraud in project management by Collinger and his core team... For example, the so-called 'chief engineer' responsible for the development of the booster rocket, Mellie Hurst, was found to have no doctorate in any engineering field..."

He snorted heavily.

"However, a conclusive chain of evidence that the information was leaked to a specific person ... could not be established."

"In short, accountability will be carried out, but this matter ends here." Gates waved his hand, as if to dispel this unpleasant topic, "You should focus all your energy on 'Sea Dragon'..."

……

On the other side of the earth, southwest China.

Chang Haonan's project team is testing the "Zou Yu" prototype at the wind tunnel center in Mianyang.

Inside the huge wind tunnel test section, a scaled-down model of a futuristic aircraft with a unique shape is being firmly fixed by a precise bracket, enduring the impact of simulated airflow.

It has a wide and flat lifting body fuselage, which is exactly the prototype design of "Zou Yu".

Unlike the Huairou base which focuses on supersonic and hypersonic speeds, the Mianyang base has more complete low-speed and transonic testing capabilities.

The efficiency of the parallel double-cone waverider configuration at high Mach numbers has been fully demonstrated. As long as Lingxiao-2 can provide sufficient thrust, it will not be difficult to achieve the design goal.

On the contrary, in the low-speed range, this design still has a lot of room for improvement.

In particular, using only a turbojet 14 engine to propel the entire aircraft to take off and reach the critical speed as quickly as possible places very high demands on the lift-to-drag ratio and heading stability.

However, the already designed shape of the waverider cannot be destroyed.

So I can only focus on the details.

At this time, Chang Haonan was having dinner in the cafeteria with Xing Muchun.

There were not many people in the cafeteria, and several large-screen TVs hanging on the wall were playing the news.

"…Latest news from our station. The U.S. Department of Defense's Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) and the Office of Naval Research jointly announced yesterday that the hypersonic missile code-named 'HMMS' they developed successfully completed its first live-fire flight test at a test site in Utah..."

The announcer's voice instantly attracted the attention of the few people in the cafeteria.

Xing Muchun had just sat down with the dinner plate in his hand. His hand holding the chopsticks paused slightly in mid-air and he looked up at the TV screen.

The screen first showed a shot of Prabhakar in high spirits at the press conference, and then switched to a blurry but shocking image of explosion smoke.

"'HMMS'?" Xing Muchun thought about it for a moment, then whispered to Chang Haonan, "This HMMS...how come I haven't heard of it before? Is it something they just launched?"

Chang Haonan's eyes were also fixed on the screen, but he did not answer immediately.

Based on the information collected so far, the United States is indeed advancing only three hypersonic weapons projects: X51A, Sea Dragon, and Falcon, and the first of them is still in a precarious state.

But the world today is completely different from the previous life, so he is not sure about it.

Soon, the TV screen broadcast a clip of an F-15C fighter jet taking off and hanging missiles.

Although it was processed and the angle was deliberately avoided to have a clear full view, the missile with its gray-white body, hard lines and astonishing diameter still gave Chang Haonan a strong sense of déjà vu.

"Look at that mount," Chang Haonan raised his hand and pointed at the screen, "This configuration, and this launch method... don't look like new technology."

Seconds later, footage of an F15C taking off provided a better angle.

"It's more like... a double-cone warhead ballistic missile used for technical verification." Chang Haonan further judged, "It's about the same level of technology as when we were working on liquid verification missiles... six or seven years ago."

China's hypersonic weapons testing also began with a similar missile.

However, its size is much larger than that of the HMMS and it even requires a specially modified Tu-160 to launch it.

At this time, a clip of Prabhakar's comments on HMMS began to be played on the news.

"…a revolutionary standoff weapon…unparalleled penetration speed…extremely high accuracy…"

"Tsk..." Xing Muchun couldn't help but shook his head slightly, his expression half shocked and half helpless about the "propaganda" of his American counterparts, "The highest speed is only Mach 6?"

This sentence is almost as Versailles as it can get.

But then he continued to comment bluntly:

"With this speed, the existing advanced regional air defense system can still intercept it... It's not even close to being 'unparalleled', let alone 'revolutionary'."

Chang Haonan wanted to say something, but suddenly noticed a staff member behind Prabhakar.

Or strictly speaking, it is the logo on the jackets of the staff members——

It was a variant of a sea dragon pattern with lightning wrapped around it.

"Wait," Chang Haonan pointed at the TV, "Old Xing, look at the logo on the clothes of the person behind her."

Xing Muchun took a closer look and recognized it:

"Hai Long?"

"So... this HMMS is actually part of their 'Sea Dragon' project?"

"It seems so." Chang Haonan thought thoughtfully, "Inserting this level of ballistic missiles into the 'Hailong' plan is either the product of their internal struggle and compromise, or..."

Xing Muchun put down his chopsticks and looked more serious:

"Or maybe they realized that there were fundamental problems with their past development path, so they went back to the starting point."

If Americans can really turn to pragmatism in this way, then relying on their higher R&D investment and stronger comprehensive national strength, they can still bring considerable pressure to China.

"Forget it..." Chang Haonan picked up his chopsticks again and stopped dwelling on this topic. "In the field of hypersonic aircraft, we no longer need to pay too much attention to the progress of the Americans."

"'Zou Yu' and these things they are doing now... whether it is called HMMS or something else, it will be a generational gap..."

"..."

"Beep beep-"

At this moment, a crisp reminder sound came from Chang Haonan's pocket.

He took out his cell phone, turned off the alarm on the screen, and then quickened his eating pace.

"The low-speed, high-angle-of-attack test data from this morning should have been processed."