Scramjet test successful

On 5/27/2010 11:58 AM, me wrote:
On Thu, 27 May 2010 14:47:55 -0800, Pat
wrote:


The X-43A was far faster than the X-51A at Mach 9.6, but ran on liquid
hydrogen rather than a storable fuel like the X-51A uses.

Both were boosted to close to their test points and used GASEOUS H2.

Boy, that's one way to reduce your range in a hurry. :-D
You would have thought they would have used LH2 and had some sort of
heat exchanger to both cool the engine and nosecap while turning the LH2
into gas by heating it.

The fact that the four tests will run at four to six week intervals
indicates that this is something that the military wants to get on-line
in a operational form in fairly short order.

Not going to happen, they have all ready said they are standing down
for 2010, I interpret that as FY2010.

The four-to-six week plan was contingent on everything working right; it
apparently didn't:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boeing_X-51#Testing
BTW, there's a scramjet missile pretty close to the X-51A in concept in
the Air Force 2025 report from 1996:
http://www.fas.org/spp/military/doco...%20%28SHMAC%29
Thought that one flies at Mach 8 and has a built-in as opposed to tandem
rocket booster
Its range was to be 1,100 miles when launched from a subsonic jet
aircraft at 30,000 feet:
http://www.fas.org/spp/military/doco...2/img00021.gif


Pat

On 5/27/2010 1:44 PM, me wrote:

That's old news They announced previous to this test this was the only
try this year. The standing army and competition for the B-52 and
range resources was just too expensive.

What else are they using the test center's B-52 for at the moment?
There's a patent for cooling a scramjet's intake via a flush-mounted
radiator while heating the fuel he
http://www.google.com/patents/about?...ssignee:boeing

Pat