The US Air Force is creating a new hypersonic aircraft based on the successful test flight of hypersonic scramjet X-51, which flew at Mach 5.1 (3,882 mph) 60,000 ft over the Pacific in 2013.

The US Air Force is planning to build a hypersonic air vehicle based on the X-51 Waverider. The Air Force and DARPA are aiming to create the new hypersonic aircraft by 2023.

She told military.com that the test of X-51 turned to be very successful for an airborne hypersonic weapons system. She said, “X-51 was really a proof of concept test. It showed that you could get a scram jet engine, launch it off an aircraft and it could go hypersonic. It was able to go more than Mach 5 until it ran out of fuel”.

Hypersonic speeds are classified as Mach 5 through Mach 10, which is approximately five to ten times faster than the speed of sound. A traditionally five-hour flight from Los Angeles to NYC would be cut down to roughly 30 minutes in a hypersonic aircraft.

However, these hypersonic flights are for unmanned aircraft and weapons as too much acceleration is required to reach these speeds, which can’t be withstood easily by humans.

The US Air Force's previous hypersonic jet broke the world record for the longest hypersonic flight. The new air vehicle could be used to transport sensors, equipment or weaponry in the future, depending upon how the technology develops.