doweshowbellyad0 washington delhi to washington in an hour and half instead of 15 hours mankinds long awaited future flight vision got a big thrust on saturday when nasa boosted a revolutionary new jet engine to 8000 km per hour in an experiment over the pacific a pegasus rocket ignites moments after being dropped from a b52 bomber the socalled scramjet supersonic combustion ramjet a 36metre x43a research vehicle resembling a winged surfboard hit a speed of more than mach 7 seven times the speed of sound during 11 seconds of powered flight before gliding at hypersonic speeds for several minutes and finally plunging into the oceanthe experiment broke a technology barrier in becoming the fastest flight ever recorded surpassing the mach 67 speed record set by the x15 rocketpowered plane in 1967 progress in hypersonic technology using oxygen as fuel has been spotty and fraught with difficulties nasa aborted a similar flight in june 2001 after its booster rocket fell apart after the launch india is among the countries hot on the scramjet trail the drdo has an active program to make what are essentially airbreathing engines but in july 2002 it was a group of australian researchers who surprised the world by testing the most advanced scramjet engine leaving nasa redfacedexperts consider the scramjet success a big step for aerospace technology it has the potential to revolutionise travel it will make the concorde look slow hourlong transcontinental flights become feasible says dr ajay kothari president of astrox corporation which is a nasa subcontractor for the projectheres how it works in normal course the common turbojet found on most commercial and military aircraft uses turbines inside the engine to compress air which ignites with jet fuel to create combustion and then thrust but because the air flows too slowly and the engine overheats at high speeds scientists and engineers have long worked on a way to overcome this one answer was the ramjet a hollow tube with no moving parts where air flows into the front at supersonic speeds and combines with hydrogen to create pressure and the expanding gas propels the plane forward in saturdays landmark experiment a b52 plane carried a booster to launch the scramjet over the pacific at 95000 feet the hypersonic jet separated from the booster and began an autonomous mission based on preprogrammed flight instruction the jet then flew independently for