X-43 - Has anyone else done it?

"Franz Geff" wrote in message .com...
Has any other country had success with a Ramjet or Scramjet??? France tried
Hypersonics in the 50s and failed I believe (wasn't it called the Griffon
Aircraft). I have been following many new aerospace developments for a
number of years (namely scramjets and aerospike rocket engines).

From about a year ago...


"Garrison Hilliard" wrote in message
...

This airplane looked a lot like a hypodermic syringe
and was powered by a huge ramjet... does anyone know of this
plane and have any details?

There were a number of rather weird prototypes in the 1950s,
but I think you must be referring to the ramjet aircraft designed
by Rene Leduc. He built a number of types, numbered 0.10, 0.16,
0.21 and 0.22. The 0.22 had an auxiliary jet engine to allow
a normal take-off and was intended as an operational Mach 2
interceptor; the others all had to be air-launched to start the
ramjet engine.

There are good illustrations on
http://jnpassieux.chez.tiscali.fr/html/Leduc021.php and
http://jnpassieux.chez.tiscali.fr/html/Leduc010.php

The Leduc aircraft were little more than huge ramjets. The pilot's
cockpit was in an inner fuselage, which was surrounded by burners;
an outer fuselage shell completed the engine. Tiny tail surfaces and
landing gear were another characteristic. The programme is claimed
to have been reasonably successful, but in 1957 the testing of the 0.22
was halted in a budget round.

--
Emmanuel Gustin
Emmanuel.Gustin -rem@ve- skynet.be
Flying Guns Page:
http://users.skynet.be/Emmanuel.Gustin/

Keith Willshaw wrote:

The fourth came down just offshore, the location of the accident
was well known and it was in shallow coastal waters and the
USN deployed a large recovery force.

It still took take the best part of 3 MONTHS to find that
one weapon. A number of weapons have been lost
in mid ocean incidents involving B-36 and B-47 aircraft
and none were recovered.

A local fisherman told the USN that the bomb went down "there". The
admiral in charge of the recovery told the fisherman to bugger off,
"we'll find it". After several weeks of searching guess where the USN
found the bomb.



--
Jim

carry on




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From: "Keith Willshaw"


"Scott Ferrin" wrote in message
.. .
On Mon, 29 Mar 2004 16:14:07 +0100, "Keith Willshaw"
wrote:



They *did* manage to find four MK28 bombs though, though I don't
recall if it was in the Atlantic or Med.


It was at Palomares Spain and 3 of the weapons came down on land.

The fourth came down just offshore, the location of the accident
was well known and it was in shallow coastal waters and the
USN deployed a large recovery force.

It still took take the best part of 3 MONTHS to find that
one weapon. A number of weapons have been lost
in mid ocean incidents involving B-36 and B-47 aircraft
and none were recovered.

Keith


A fisherman had seen that bomb come down. He took noted landmarks which helped
in the search.

Bear in mind the Titanic hit the bottom miles from where it sank. The deeper
the water the bigger the search area. Currents and cross currents make
predictions difficult at best.

Dan, U.S. Air Force, retired

"Keith Willshaw" wrote in message
...

"Franz Geff" wrote in message
. com...

This missile was allowed to glide into the Pacific. Strangely enough
this
missile could be retrieved by the a foreign government (Russia, China or
France).

It was publicly stated that NASA would NOT even try and recover the jet
for
budgetary reasons and would abondon it, it would give anyone retrieving
the
X-43 the following information (at the very least):
- The materials neccessary for hypersonic flight (titanium, composites,
etc)
- The aerodynamic design
- The engine design
- Some of the onboard computer information if it is retrievable

Thus MANY of the details of how to REPEAT this experiment can be GLEANED
from simply retrieve the X-43 from the Ocean bed. This would be well
worth
the risk to any foreign power. So I think that was not the wisest idea
....


Lets try and provide you with a a clue

1) The Pacific is BIG

2) The Pacific is DEEP

3) The missile is SMALL

The X-43 would have hit the water at a fair clip and likely been
bent and torn apart. The shaping is all important, to pretty tight
tolerances and probably can not be determined from the remains
of the X-43. If it could be determined, it would tell them the
shape for a missile 12 foot long, scaling is not obviously linear.

"Keith Willshaw" wrote in message
...

"Franz Geff" wrote in message
. com...

This missile was allowed to glide into the Pacific. Strangely enough
this
missile could be retrieved by the a foreign government (Russia, China or
France).

It was publicly stated that NASA would NOT even try and recover the jet
for
budgetary reasons and would abondon it, it would give anyone retrieving
the
X-43 the following information (at the very least):
- The materials neccessary for hypersonic flight (titanium, composites,
etc)
- The aerodynamic design
- The engine design
- Some of the onboard computer information if it is retrievable

Thus MANY of the details of how to REPEAT this experiment can be GLEANED
from simply retrieve the X-43 from the Ocean bed. This would be well
worth
the risk to any foreign power. So I think that was not the wisest idea
....


Lets try and provide you with a a clue

1) The Pacific is BIG

2) The Pacific is DEEP

3) The missile is SMALL

The X-43 would have hit the water at a fair clip and likely been
bent and torn apart. The shaping is all important, to pretty tight
tolerances and probably can not be determined from the remains
of the X-43. If it could be determined, it would tell them the
shape for a missile 12 foot long, scaling is not obviously linear.

"Keith Willshaw" wrote in message
...

"Franz Geff" wrote in message
. com...

This missile was allowed to glide into the Pacific. Strangely enough
this
missile could be retrieved by the a foreign government (Russia, China or
France).

It was publicly stated that NASA would NOT even try and recover the jet
for
budgetary reasons and would abondon it, it would give anyone retrieving
the
X-43 the following information (at the very least):
- The materials neccessary for hypersonic flight (titanium, composites,
etc)
- The aerodynamic design
- The engine design
- Some of the onboard computer information if it is retrievable

Thus MANY of the details of how to REPEAT this experiment can be GLEANED
from simply retrieve the X-43 from the Ocean bed. This would be well
worth
the risk to any foreign power. So I think that was not the wisest idea
....


Lets try and provide you with a a clue

1) The Pacific is BIG

2) The Pacific is DEEP

3) The missile is SMALL

The X-43 would have hit the water at a fair clip and likely been
bent and torn apart. The shaping is all important, to pretty tight
tolerances and probably can not be determined from the remains
of the X-43. If it could be determined, it would tell them the
shape for a missile 12 foot long, scaling is not obviously linear.

"Keith Willshaw" wrote in message
...

"Franz Geff" wrote in message
. com...

This missile was allowed to glide into the Pacific. Strangely enough
this
missile could be retrieved by the a foreign government (Russia, China or
France).

It was publicly stated that NASA would NOT even try and recover the jet
for
budgetary reasons and would abondon it, it would give anyone retrieving
the
X-43 the following information (at the very least):
- The materials neccessary for hypersonic flight (titanium, composites,
etc)
- The aerodynamic design
- The engine design
- Some of the onboard computer information if it is retrievable

Thus MANY of the details of how to REPEAT this experiment can be GLEANED
from simply retrieve the X-43 from the Ocean bed. This would be well
worth
the risk to any foreign power. So I think that was not the wisest idea
....


Lets try and provide you with a a clue

1) The Pacific is BIG

2) The Pacific is DEEP

3) The missile is SMALL

The X-43 would have hit the water at a fair clip and likely been
bent and torn apart. The shaping is all important, to pretty tight
tolerances and probably can not be determined from the remains
of the X-43. If it could be determined, it would tell them the
shape for a missile 12 foot long, scaling is not obviously linear.

Scott Ferrin wrote in message . ..
On Mon, 29 Mar 2004 06:24:58 GMT, "Franz Geff"
wrote:

Has any other country had success with a Ramjet or Scramjet??? France tried
Hypersonics in the 50s and failed I believe (wasn't it called the Griffon
Aircraft). I have been following many new aerospace developments for a
number of years (namely scramjets and aerospike rocket engines).

Russia and France supposedly launched one on the nose of an SA-5.

Russia supposedly flew a scramjet powered RV on a Topal a month or two
ago.

Not from a Topal, but from the SS-19.

Reference the Russia/France joint IGLA project:

The following papers including the project IGLA (AIAA-2003-5250), can
be found at the following website:

11th AIAA / AAAF INTERNATIONAL CONFERENCE

Space Planes and Hypersonic Systems and Technologies

AIAA-2002-5250

http://hypersonic2002.aaaf.asso.fr/received.html

http://hypersonic2002.aaaf.asso.fr/papers/17_5250.pdf

Some very interesting papers also appear on the website on the subject
of hypersonic vehicles.

TJ

(Frode Hansen) wrote in message . com...
NoHoverStop wrote in message ...
Franz Geff wrote:
Has any other country had success with a Ramjet or Scramjet???

Depends what you mean by "success"; no-one's flying them commercially
yet. However: http://www.abc.net.au/science/slab/hyshot/default.htm

The story that they succesfully flight tested a scramjet seems to be
well accepted, but are the test data peer rewieved and the scientific
community in agreement with this conclusion?

I am also wondering if there exist any conseptual ideas for useful
application of such an engine . I imagine one would need considerable
boosting just to get a vehicle from 'runay mode' and into 'working
mode', and that the prices of the once so impressive Concorde flights
would be dwarfed by orders of magnitude if passenger/payload traffic
is considered.

I like it though. No moving parts :-)

.fh

Most of the schemes rely on the device opperating as a ramjet and then
changing the Geometry from ramjet to scramjet mode as speed excedes
about Mach 4.5 -Mach 5.5.

There is a type of ramjet called an inductor ramjet. This has a small
rocket motor in the central supersonic diffuser spike. Below
opperating speed the rocket fires producing a small amount of thrust
but also inducing an airflow sufficient to opperate as a ramjet at
zero speed. Specific impulse when the Germans tested it in the
1930/1940 is about 800 which is about twice that of a LOH/LOX rocket
but half that of a turbofan with reheat. (At that time they were
interested in rockets to get started and coal dust as fuel)

These tests seem to be have an redculouse aura of PR hype. Everything
from the synthetic and hysterionic whooping in the control center to
the schmaltzy hypersonic airliners cartoons. The only use for this
will be putting loads into orbit.

X43 is trying to do a few other things. It is trying to integrate the
forbody of the vehicle as part of the scramjet intake i.e
precompression and the afterbody of the vehicle as the engine nozzle
while also making the body a lifting body. It's all tall order to
integrate all three but they have to be integrated because scramjets
just don't work well enough on their own. The wedge shapped nose has
to be agressively cooled by hydrogen.

Personaly I think a two stage to orbit vehicle with a 100% reusable
flyback booster is a better direction to go.

Eunometic wrote:
X43 is trying to do a few other things. It is trying to integrate the
forbody of the vehicle as part of the scramjet intake i.e
precompression and the afterbody of the vehicle as the engine nozzle
while also making the body a lifting body. It's all tall order to
integrate all three but they have to be integrated because scramjets
just don't work well enough on their own. The wedge shapped nose has
to be agressively cooled by hydrogen.

The problem with hydrogen is that it isn't very dense so you can't carry
much fuel and the problem with hydrocarbons is that the air flows
through the scramjet engine too quickly for these fuels to burn.

The X-43C will use hydrocarbon fuel for cooling and the heat breaks the
fuel down so it can burn quickly enough to provide thrust in the engine.

-HJC