The U.S. Navy's "Blackbeard" hypersonic missile achieves lift-off flight with an F/A-18E/F mount

The picture shows the F/A-18E/F "Super Hornet" actually taking off and flying with the "Blackbeard" mounted under the wing. (Picture taken from X@NAVAIRNews)

[Reporter Wu Zheyu/Comprehensive Report] The U.S. Navy's new "Blackbeard" hypersonic missile accelerates into combat effectiveness. The latest images clearly show that the F/A-18E/F "Super Hornet" has two "Blackbeard" missiles mounted under the wings and actually takes off. This weapon focuses on "low cost, mass production". It can not only attack warships and land targets, but the US military also aims to form early combat capability (EOC) in 2027.

The military news website "The Aviationist" reported that the U.S. Naval Air Systems Command (NAVAIR) recently released the "Blackbeard" test image. Compared with the ground mount photos first exposed at the "Tailhook Association" seminar in August, the new image has confirmed that the missile actually took off with the F/A-18E/F, showing that the integration work continues to advance rapidly.

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"Blackbeard" was developed by the US defense startup Castelion as part of the "Multi-mission Affordable Mass Effector" (MACE) project. The Navy positions it as a "quick response, long-range, high-speed strike option" for carrier-based aircraft, hoping to increase the number of stand-off strike weapons that can be used by the carrier air wing under the threat of advanced enemy air defenses.

The detailed performance of the missile is still confidential, and it is currently only confirmed that the design speed exceeds Mach 5. Unlike the United States' hypersonic weapons in the past, which were usually expensive and purchased in limited quantities, Castellone has focused on large-scale mass production and unit price reduction from the beginning, and introduced vertically integrated propulsion and guidance technologies and commercial manufacturing methods.

The purchasing speed of "Blackbeard" is also quite amazing. In February this year, the U.S. Navy first invested US$49.9 million to promote the conversion of prototypes to EOC. In April, it signed a contract of US$105 million to implement F/A-18 hardware and software integration, flight testing and shipboard airworthiness certification. In June, it then ordered 50 EOC pre-production prototype bombs.

In August, the US military invested another nearly 90 million US dollars to promote the conversion of "Blackbeard" into a formal deployment plan, and even included "defense export capabilities" to reserve space for future sales to allies. On September 14, Castelion announced that it had received a production order of up to US$200 million.

Among them, the first order of US$43.65 million covers 444 "Blackbeard" "fully prepared ammunition", which is a rare scale for hypersonic weapons. Production will take place at Castellone's 1,000-acre Project Ranger manufacturing campus in New Mexico and at its California factory.