A key issue in making air-breathing hypersonic flight feasible and efficient is the control design. The unique dynamic characteristics of air-breathing hypersonic flight vehicles together with the aerodynamic effects of hypersonic flight make this issue challenging. Moreover the hypersonic speed and the lack of broad flight databases add significant plant parameter variations and uncertainties to the control design problem. In this paper, we first review and critique the existing approaches to this problem. Then, we propose a new control design direction to address some of the shortcomings of the existing designs. Our new approach is based on use of time varying triangular plant models and robust nonlinear and adaptive controllers that have been recently developed for such models.