I'm tickled that Hyshot has beaten the X-43 to the scramjet punch -- however, this can't be claimed as the "world's first scramjet flight". Military scramjets have been flying for years.

How do I know? You've probably heard about the company Space Access LLC -- a highly secretive and well-funded operation, populated by ex-spooks, that is developing some kind of a launch system? I saw a presentation by their founder (Stephen G. Wurst) several years ago, where he explained what they are doing. Their core innovation consists of an "ejector scramjet" engine, which is a modified scramjet engine that can also function as a rocket at sub-sonic and super-sonic speeds. This engine has been built and fully wind-tunnel tested, and he had some nifty slides showing it firing on the test stand.

Someone in the audience asked: "What do you mean, a 'modified' scramjet engine?"

He replied: "Well, we just took an existing scramjet engine and added the ejector capabilitiy."

"What do you mean, 'existing scramjet engine'?"

"Well... it comes from the military... the scramjet engine is a still-classified design that we have licensed from them... I can't tell you much more than that, except to say that there have been hundreds of production units, and thousands of hours of flight time."

"Flight time? Not wind-tunnel time?"

"That's right, flight time."

So there you have it. The military has been doing this a lot.

Cheers,

Nathan.