Do you think scram jet travel will succeed?
However, if we are to remember, this will not be the first time supersonic air travel takes place. As early as the 60s, the concorde was flying supersonic carrying passengers between the UK and France. Unfortunately, it never got widely accepted in the world as a result of the sonic boom it creates as it flies past.
Under such circumstances, do you think a hypersonic air plane carrying passengers will ever succeed in becoming the new passenger aircraft of the future? Do you think such an aircraft will ever replace the conventional passenger aircraft now used?
Answer:
Dead as a door nail
The technology has been here for almost 50 years and has not been used because it is fundamentally a bad idea.
We were testing scramjets at Marquardt in the 1950's and the technoliogy worked.
Regular ramjets - with subsonic combustion - flew at mach 4 and altitudes over 100k feet on the Lockheed x7.
Scramjets worked in the wind tunnel.
Not used why? Expensive and has no advantage. The Boeing BOMARC - Mach 2.5 interceptor - lost out to the nike because, the Nike did the job cheaper.
I rode on the concorde once - nice but I would never have taken it if someone else were not buying my ticket. And the concorde was slow compared woith these things.
While I'm at it, the LACE Liquid Air Cycle Engine is just as dead. Idea - runway to space airplane. I built a demo functioning small scale model of the LACE. Same deal - too complicated.
I think the national securities of different countries will be the blockage of such device.
It is hard to shoot down such planes. And the military will have to consider what if someone carrying weapons with the intention to attack.
They may not have enough time and ability to response.
So many countries may not allow it to go.
No for a number of reasons:
1.
The extreme altitude scram jets operate in don't make it viable. By the time the aircraft is at the required altituted the liklyhood is half the journey is completed.
2.
The aircraft must be travelling very fast in the first place before the scram jet kicks in..again probably half the journey is already completed.
3.
Once you are travelling faster then the speed of sound and air starts to compress.fuel consumption to speed ratio goes wat out the window!
it will never be possible using current fuel resources;
Hypersonics might be used in the future to build up velocity for space travel but there wouldn't be much use for passenger travel. It is way too expensive as mentioned above, which is the main reason why the concorde was abandoned. There are a few supersonic passenger jet programs, however, that are being developed to address the downfalls of the concorde (cost, efficiency, noise...). Hypersonic flight is too costly for reasons like the requirement of advanced materials to withstand the high temperatures accumulated due to aerodynamic heating. The most practical application for hypersonic flight are missiles and defense armaments becuase the government is about the only ones who can afford such things. It would be pretty interesting though, as a passenger, to be able to experience the gut wrenching feeling of accelerating past Mach 3. There would be nothing that could even compare to that.
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