Scramjet SSTO

On 6/21/2010 4:12 PM, Greg D. Moore (Strider) wrote:

Yeah, it's an impressive plane. Wonder how long before it's equalled or
surpassed (as I'm sure it will be eventually.

That's not a big plane...Wings Over The World's "WT-715"...now that's a
_big_ plane:
http://rbowser.tripod.com/metropolis/things18.jpg
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pVMJY...eature=related
That thing must have what? A 400 foot wingspan?...and twin
fuselages...and cockpit dials that are around two feet in diameter...
Don't ever, ever, get smart-ass with someone who dresses like a giant
vacuum tube...you're going to get your ass kicked, and then end up
living a giant cave while wearing a toga.
I think Ayn Rand's worst nightmares revolved around wearing a toga in a
cave where no man wanted to rape her, much as she wanted that to occur,
because they had gone all weak and commie. :-D

Pat

On 6/21/2010 4:49 PM, Rick Jones wrote:
"Greg D. Moore wrote:
Yeah, it's an impressive plane. Wonder how long before it's
equalled or surpassed (as I'm sure it will be eventually.

Perhaps not until a blended-wing-body transport is developed?


The problem is...you can actually build a aircraft with a 800-1,000 foot
wingspan (Tupolev was actually designing things like that back in the
early 1930's) from a structural point of view; but where are you going
to find a runway that's around 200 feet wide to accommodate the spread
of that aircraft's landing gear? Anything less wide than that and it's
probably going to hit one wingtip into the ground during landing in any
sort of wind at all.

Pat

In article
tatelephone,
says...

On 6/21/2010 3:00 PM, Jeff Findley wrote:

It is a shame. My brother is a Civil Engineer in the power generation
industry and got to see the An-225 in person. They were unloading a
huge part of a power plant (turbine?) at an airport near a power plant
he was working on. He took some awesome pictures of the unloading
process.

Ruslan is a most useful aircraft (one on a cargo mission actually landed
at Fargo several years back and enveloped nearby traffic in a
jet-engine-induced dust storm as it cranked up its engines for takeoff),
but Mriya is too specialized; it was designed to carry oversized
payloads on its back rather than internally, and that really creates
high drag and poor fuel economy due to that drag; now something like
Mriya turned into a super cargo plane with only internal cargo stowage
just might work from a economic point of view.

As all space buffs should know, it can carry cargo on its back like the
Buran space shuttle:

Awesome picture with Buran on the back of the An-225
http://www.buran.fr/bourane-buran/Ph...port-Carriage-
buran_an-225_1.jpg

But it's also got a big honking cargo hold built into its fuselage. The
nose tilts up to create a huge door. I think the landing gear also
allows the nose to be lowered to help with loading/unloading of cargo.

http://www.buran-energia.com/blog/wp...04/AN225_8.jpg
http://www.buran-energia.com/blog/wp...04/AN225_9.jpg

http://www.buran-energia.com/blog/wp...2007/03/an225-
13.jpg

The pictures my brother sent me showed cargo being unloaded from the
internal cargo bay.

Jeff
--
The only decision you'll have to make is
Who goes in after the snake in the morning?

On 6/23/2010 4:23 AM, Jeff Findley wrote:
In article
tatelephone,
says...

On 6/21/2010 3:00 PM, Jeff Findley wrote:

It is a shame. My brother is a Civil Engineer in the power generation
industry and got to see the An-225 in person. They were unloading a
huge part of a power plant (turbine?) at an airport near a power plant
he was working on. He took some awesome pictures of the unloading
process.

Ruslan is a most useful aircraft (one on a cargo mission actually landed
at Fargo several years back and enveloped nearby traffic in a
jet-engine-induced dust storm as it cranked up its engines for takeoff),
but Mriya is too specialized; it was designed to carry oversized
payloads on its back rather than internally, and that really creates
high drag and poor fuel economy due to that drag; now something like
Mriya turned into a super cargo plane with only internal cargo stowage
just might work from a economic point of view.

As all space buffs should know, it can carry cargo on its back like the
Buran space shuttle:

Awesome picture with Buran on the back of the An-225
http://www.buran.fr/bourane-buran/Ph...port-Carriage-
buran_an-225_1.jpg

But it's also got a big honking cargo hold built into its fuselage. The
nose tilts up to create a huge door. I think the landing gear also
allows the nose to be lowered to help with loading/unloading of cargo.

http://www.buran-energia.com/blog/wp...04/AN225_8.jpg
http://www.buran-energia.com/blog/wp...04/AN225_9.jpg

http://www.buran-energia.com/blog/wp...2007/03/an225-
13.jpg

The pictures my brother sent me showed cargo being unloaded from the
internal cargo bay.

I'm still amazed they could get a Mya-4 "Bison" airborne with Buran
riding on its back.
That thing was such a clunker that getting it airborne at all must be
considered a major accomplishment. :-)

Pat

Pat Flannery ) writes:
On 6/21/2010 8:50 AM, Greg D. Moore (Strider) wrote:

Anything burning fluorine as an oxidizer isn't going to be cheap.

Any time the answer involves fluorine, one has to wonder if you're asking
the right question. :-)

One of the few things I would think was worse to get on my skin than RFNA.*
I think fluorine was what the Alien in the movies was using for blood,
considering what it was shown to do anything it got on the films.

Nah. Fluorine is a gas. And hydrogen fluoride isn't that nasty in contact
with metals. The real question is what the Alien's blood vessels were
made of.

--John Park