Waverider
Hypersonic aircraft design / From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
For other uses, see Waverider (disambiguation).
A waverider is a hypersonic aircraft design that improves its supersonic lift-to-drag ratio by using the shock waves being generated by its own flight as a lifting surface, a phenomenon known as compression lift.
![Thumb image](http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/9/97/X51waverider.jpg/320px-X51waverider.jpg)
![Thumb image](http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/7/71/Project_0901_Flying_Vehicle.jpg/640px-Project_0901_Flying_Vehicle.jpg)
![Thumb image](http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/2/28/Ayaks.jpg/640px-Ayaks.jpg)
The waverider remains a well-studied design for high-speed aircraft in the Mach 5 and higher hypersonic regime, although no such design has yet entered production. The Boeing X-51 scramjet demonstration aircraft was tested from 2010 to 2013. In its final test flight, it reached a speed of Mach 5.1 (5,400 km/h; 3,400 mph).[1][2]