A.L.L.S. flew all the way from Switzerland to launch a 10-foot, carbon-fiber beauty designed to go Mach 2.5.

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By contrast, a jet fighter plane travels at speeds of Mach 1 to Mach 2, and the Space Shuttle blasts into space at Mach 25.

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At altitude, its top speed is Mach 2.25 compared to Mach 2 for the U.S. F-16 Fighting Falcon, another multirole fighter aircraft made by General Dynamics and Lockheed Martin.

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It was only a short burn lasting about 16 seconds, but it propelled SS2 beyond the sound barrier to a speed of Mach 1.2.

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This caused him to wind up flying 40 miles past the landing field at Mach 3 (2, 000 mph) before turning back, and only narrowly miss some trees.

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Mach is a measure of the ratio of the velocity of an object, in this case a plane, to the velocity of sound, which equals Mach 1, or 761.2 miles per hour.

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