29 public posts in this discussion.
NASA acheived success with the x43a test craft accelerating to hypersonic speeds with a scramjet engine. Confirming theories that it is possible.
First step in allowing craft to fly into space and return. Plus possibility of faster airline travel.
http://www.space.com/missionlaunches/x43_launch_040327.html
Damn me!!
I have been waiting for this for a loooong time thanks P-air
Apparently the australian one reached mach 8.9 or so for a few seconds on its flight :P
Not sure if this picture is legitimate or not...(found on Kazaa a while ago)
fuck that. dats quick.
good for a trip down to the shops for some scoffee eh :P
Nah..
but good to get my ass back to Darwin in a hurry tho...
super cool!
Make those red eye flight to and from Darwin a lot more bearable :)
Thats bloodly fast
that is so very cool.
imagine the acceleration on sumthing like that though
I think the main drawback is that it already has to be going bloody fast (yes that is my technical measurment of speed) before the scramjet can operate. But hell yeah!!
2 hrs Sydney to New York - mach 7+
That pic looks about the same as on the news ....
20 yrs before it is in "production" for use on civillian aircraft ...
Thats all well and good, but i dont like being turned into Jelly.
Quote from Milenko:
Thats all well and good, but i dont like being turned into Jelly.
lol yeah.... but it would be a rush!!!
nar they would have to accelorate steadily to the max speed so it will just feel like a normal plane
maybe with a bit more turbulance :P
the scramjet needs to going at mach 5 to actually start working.... and it's been about 20 years in the making :S
but, hell yeah - 1 hour , if that, from Darwin to Brissie....
I wouldn't mind looking like the guys from "spies like us"... be a hell of a rush :D
...... "would you like a cup of coffee?".....
I read somewhere that the scram jet will be used to assist launch vehicles get into space. Having couple of scramjets bolted onto to space craft somewhere can assist when spacecraft gets up to speed for scramjets to fire up.
Theory is that they will be able to lift more weight into orbit with less fuel.
Might see it on new shuttle design once old one is retired.
Quote from Warlock:
but, hell yeah - 1 hour , if that, from Darwin to Brissie....
if its 2 hours from sydney to new york then it would be hell faster than that, 10, 5 mins maybe?
How do Scramjets actually work?
With your stock standard Rocket engine, Oxygen is carried in tanks aboard the craft under lots of pressure (AKA Liquid Oxygen) and mixed with fuel which then ignites creating thrust that pushes the craft forwards.
With this new fangled scramjet, no oxygen is stored on the plane. It's collected from the atmosphere as the plane moves. The oxygen still needs to be compressed largely so there's enough of it to ignite with the fuel, which is why the plane needs to be doing Mach 5 (or what ever it was...) for the scram jet to even start working. At lower speeds there just isn't enough compression.
Well that's my understanding of it anyway, summarised.
Correct
It uses the forward movement and specially designed intake to compress the oxygen right down so minimal hydrogen fuel needs to be added for excellent thrust generated.
The SR71 Blackbird used similar principles for its engines, but the max speed of that sweet thing has never "really" been tested, but its fast enough to outrun surface to air missiles though :)
its my favourite plane :D
I saw a documentary on the Discovery channel years ago about someting similar. It could travel from the east cost of the USA to the west cost in just over 30 minutes (I think, can't recall exactly, something ludicrus anyway), but I'm pretty sure it was an un-manned craft.
Im sick to death of all the papers reciting the same tune, "revolutionary hypersonic flight". Don't get me wrong - i'm all for NASA and the JPL etc and what they have achieved, however, mysteriously no-one has made any mention that we australians (i.e. the qld university) launched our own scramjet on the back of a rocket from Wommerra - which was successful in achieving hypersonic flight (somewhere around 8.9 or 9 mach for a few 10ths of a second)...
The only difference between ours and "theirs" is the fact that they have already intergrated it into a vehicle.
In the end i guess it doesn't really matter as both are striving to achieve the same goal, either way i thought i better remind everyone that we did it first :P
Quote from rec:
I saw a documentary on the Discovery channel years ago about someting similar. It could travel from the east cost of the USA to the west cost in just over 30 minutes (I think, can't recall exactly, something ludicrus anyway), but I'm pretty sure it was an un-manned craft.
Yeh i remember the same thing.
But that craft was designed to 'bounce' on the outer layers of earths atmosphere. Its theorized that with the combination of pure thrust paired with low air friction (its basically in space), it would be able to reach superior speeds.
Quote from Milenko:
Its theorized...
God damn, you don't need to be a rocket scientist to know that 'pure thurst' plus minimal friction will give you fast speeds :roll:
Quote from Neo:
[quote:f971c7343a="Milenko"]Its theorized...
God damn, you don't need to be a rocket scientist to know that 'pure thurst' plus minimal friction will give you fast speeds :roll:[/quote:f971c7343a]
Its also something that can be quenched by Solo or Gatorade :P
and its technically a theory, as they havent yet put a craft of this type, into that area of the atmosphere, at those speeds ;)
Space Shuttles anyone? They go through 'that' area of the atmosphere, with quite an amount of thrust behind them :P
Anyway, once a space shuttle leaves the atmosphere there is very minimal resistance on the craft (though there still is some!)... A space shuttle will average around 25,000km/h in space.
But coming back down to earth, the best we've achieved in the atmosphere is now Mach 8, with the new development of the scramjet... or just under 8500km/h.. roughly 1/3 the speed of a space shuttle.
Quote from Milenko:
a craft of this type
The one im thinking of (and the one i think rec is thinking of) isnt a space shuttle, but more a combination between a Stealth fighter and a shuttle. It looks damn fast and does 100m/h without even moving :P
the main reason for the development of the scramjet is the following,
with a conventional jet engine that powers supersonic aircraft, engineers have to come up with tricks in engineering to slow the speed of the air to below sonic speeds so that is able to burn. Therefore with engineering tricks, jet engines can currently get aircraft upto supersonic speeds, however the air flowing through the engine is reduced to flowing at less than the speed of sound so as to burn. (Faster moving air through an engine would cause flameouts, and also the shock wave can produce compressor stalls etc)
So once a scramjet has been succesfully built and installed onto an aircraft, you could power it with both a jet engine, and a scramjet, use the jet engine to get upto hypersonics speeds and then activate the scramjet and boost away. Then when slowing, convrt back to the jet engine
of course they can use rockets in leiu of the jet engines, but for reusabilty etc, getting up to speed with a jet engine is more effiecient