We thought the Bugatti Chiron was impressive when it broke the speed record at 482 km/h.

That’s pretty fast, and it is impressive, but it’s got nothing on the sled that you’re about to see.

The U.S. Air Force tested a hypersonic sled at Holloman Air Force Base in New Mexico, and they captured the entire experiment on film.

You’re going to want to turn the sound on for this one, because it’s moving so fast that you can barely see it.

To the video we go:

That, friends, is a sled travelling at Mach 8,6. To put that into perspective, the threshold of hypersonic speed is Mach 5.

Here’s Jalopnik:

The U.S. Air Force is testing a lot of things to see if they can withstand hypersonic speeds given that this is a growing focus of the military. If something is going to be moving at thousands of miles per hour, everything involved in it needs to be able to withstand high acceleration forces and heat stressors.

That includes everything from wirings to exterior coatings, which is why the military uses the Holloman High Speed Test Track on the base. The original track was completed in 1949 and grew to be ten miles in length, used by government agencies and contractors to test weapons and other things, since it’s cheaper to do that on the ground than it is to do it in the air.

Very cool.

Also, terrifying – nothing should move that fast.

[source:jalopnik]