Half an hour across the Atlantic? How many
gs are they going to be pulling? 😮 Will anybody survive the flight?I’m guessing if you were going to be able to travel at Mach 16, an entirely new type of airplane architecture, built with new types of material is going to be needed.
We already have military planes that go pretty close to that, and missiles go at Mach 20 so we have the technology
https://www.scmp.com/news/china/science/article/3299576/chinese-scientists-build-worlds-first-jet-fuel-powered-engine-mach-16-flight
Oblique Detonation Engine
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/ShcramjetWhite paper source :
Journal of Experiments in Fluid Mechanics
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Journal_of_Experiments_in_Fluid_Mechanics
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http://www.syltlx.com/en/article/doi/10.11729/syltlx20220090?viewType=HTML
Abstract :
The oblique detonation engine has great potential application in high flight Mach number airbreathing vehicles because of its higher thermodynamic efficiency and smaller size. The research about the oblique detonation engine is renewed all over the world in recent years. However, all of the oblique detonation experiments are conducted with hydrogen fuel or ethylene. There is no experimental result about the kerosene oblique detonation. In order to examine the application feasibility of kerosene oblique detonation engine, the experimental study on the liquid RP3 aviation kerosene oblique detonation engine is conducted in JF–12 shock tunnel and the test time is about 50 ms. The difficult issue for the initiation of kerosene oblique detonation is that the ignition delay time of kerosene-air is too long and the autoignition cannot occur in the combustor. A new forced detonation initiation method is put forth to deal with this key issue. The total temperature of JF–12 shock tunnel is 3800 K and the global equivalence ratio is 0.9, which replicates Mach 9 flight-equivalent condition. The steady-state oblique detonation is obtained successfully during the experiments, which demonstrates the application feasibility of the kerosene oblique detonation engine.
N.B. :
can't link image directly :
←this image does not show on lemmy !:::
.successfully completed initial tests of a new type of detonation engine that uses kerosene.
… Why does detonation engines sound like something an Ork in 40K would invent.
How would the skin of such an aircraft be cooled? Titanium starts to melt at about Mach 4 at altitudes with sufficient oxygen for jets to breath. You can go faster if you go higher, but then you’d need to bring your own supply of oxygen, at which point you’ve built a rocket and not a jet aircraft.
The implication seems to be that China is working on an intercontinental, low observable, hypersonic, terminally maneuverable cruise missile. Payload delivery would take twice as long as an ICBM, but the launch would not be detected by legacy ICBM launch detection systems, enabling a surprise nuclear first strike. Payload delivery would still be much faster compared to launching a long range stealth bomber that caries low observable, subsonic cruise missiles.
So, does this mean more spectacular crashes given the ATC issues?
