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The aspiration that jets may some day fly at over six-times the speed of sound took a very real step toward reality recently as the US Air Force said it successfully married the test aircraft, known as the X-51A WaveRider to a B-52 in preparation for a Dec. 2 flight test.

The X-51A flight tests are intended to demonstrate that the engines can achieve their desired speed without disintegrating. While the X-51 looks like a large rocket now, its applications that could change the way aircraft or spaceships are designed, fly into space, support reconnaissance missions and handle long-distance flight operations.

At the heart of the test is the aircraft's air-breathing hypersonic scramjet system.

During the test, the B-52 will carry the X-51A to 50,000 feet over the Pacific Ocean and release it. A solid rocket booster on the X-51 will then ignite and accelerate the X-51 to about Mach 4.5. Then the fun starts. That's because after that, the supersonic combustion scramjet will blast the vehicle for five minutes to more than Mach 6. The longest-ever previous scramjet test, lasted only about 10 seconds, the Air Force stated.