Overview
- The maiden sortie took place from Spaceport America over White Sands Missile Range airspace, with the aircraft controlled from a ground-based flight deck.
- Hermeus says the flight begins a campaign to expand into supersonic performance, while independent reporting characterizes the first outing as a subsonic systems and handling check.
- Quarterhorse Mk 2.1 is roughly the size of an F-16, powered by a Pratt & Whitney F100 engine, and is nearly three times larger and four times heavier than the Mk 1.
- The mission marks the company’s second initial flight in less than a year, reinforcing its rapid, iterative build-test-learn development approach.
- Hermeus reports that Mk 2.2 is already in the build pipeline and expected to fly soon, with later phases aimed at integrating ramjet propulsion for hypersonic capability this decade.