Pretty Fast

From the Usual USAF Source:

X-51A Sets Air-Breathing Hypersonic Record:  The fourth and final mission of an X-51A Waverider test vehicle last week set the record for the longest ever air-breathing hypersonic flight, announced Air Force Research Lab officials. The May 1 flight over the Pacific Ocean was "a full mission success," said Charlie Brink, the Air Force's X-51A program manager, in the service's May 3 release. The X-51 vehicle traveled more than 230 nautical miles in slightly more than six minutes off the coast of southern California, states the release. A B-52 starting from Edwards AFB, Calif., carried the X-51 aloft, releasing it at approximately 50,000 feet in altitude. The X-51's rocket booster accelerated the vehicle to Mach 4.8. The vehicle then separated from the booster, whereupon its supersonic combustion ramjet engine ignited and propelled the vehicle to Mach 5.1 at 60,000 feet, according to the release. After its fuel supply was expended, the vehicle glided until it splashed down in the water. "I believe all we have learned from the X-51A Waverider will serve as the bedrock for future hypersonics research and ultimately the practical application of hypersonic flight," said Brink. (Wright-Patterson report by Daryl Mayer) (See also Boeing release and X-51A Falls Short in Third Flight.)

Mach 5.1... wow!  I posted the hi-res version of the photo above so you can see as much detail as possible.

And then there's this... pretty fast in a completely different way:

U.S. Air Force Staff Sgt. Emily Allen (center) enters a hearing Wednesday. She is the first woman instructor charged in the sex-abuse scandal at Joint Base San Antonio-Lackland.
Photo: John Davenport / San Antonio Express-News

Female Instructor Convicted of Sexual Misconduct:  A military court last week sentenced SSgt. Emily Allen, a former military training instructor, to three months in jail for having sex with a recruit, reported the San Antonio Express-News. The judge also gave her 30 days of hard labor and reduced her in rank to airman first class on May 2, according to the newspaper's May 3 report. Allen is the first female instructor whom the Air Force has prosecuted thus far in the wake of the sex scandal involving former MTIs at basic military training at JBSA-Lackland, Tex. Allen pleaded guilty to having sex in 2011 with an airman in training at Keesler AFB, Miss., seeking to have a liaison with a second airman she met in basic training, and having unprofessional social relationships with a pair of female airmen, according to the newspaper. Prosecutors reportedly sought harsher punishment for Allen, asserting that she had no place being in the Air Force. (See also Seeking the Sexual-Assault Solution from Air Force Magazine's April issue.)

Equal opportunity, eh?  The highlighted bit is the sort o' thing that gives me nightmares about what might have been, mainly because I had what would euphemistically be called "unprofessional relationships" with more than a few female airmen... but never anyone who directly worked for me.  There are days when I'm pretty danged happy I'm retired.