Scramjets

[Humodour]

http://www.adelaidenow.com.au/news/south-a...3-1225843996056

 

THE dream of flying from Australia to Europe in just three hours has taken another step towards reality with the second "hypersonic" flight in outback South Australia.

 

A group of Australian and American defence boffins, working at the top-secret Woomera military range, have launched an air vehicle that hits speeds of Mach 5.5, or 5841km/h.

 

This is more than twice as fast as the fastest jet fighter and six times quicker than today's slickest airliner.

 

Such velocity would propel an aircraft from Sydney to London in just 2.9 hours.

 

The new technology, known as Hypersonic International Flight Research Experimentation, is being developed by scientists from Australia's Defence Science and Technology Organisation and the United States Air Force.

 

The Woomera test involved blasting a test vehicle 200km into space on board a rocket before it plunged back through the atmosphere at hypersonic velocity, transmitting data before breaking up and crashing to the ground 10 minutes after launch.

 

Defence Personnel, Materiel and Science Minister Greg Combet said hypersonic flight has the potential to revolutionise global air travel and provide cost-effective access to space, giving Australia the opportunity to launch satellites economically for communication purposes.

 

He said it would be reasonable to expect hypersonic propulsion to become technically feasible within 10 years. Mr Combet said the technology would allow Australia to develop a space industry in South Australia, Queensland or Victoria, based on cheap launching of communication satellites.

 

Pretty cool. No doubt military uses will come first, but still, I can dig a 2 or 3 hour flight from Sydney to London (you'd be lucky to do it in 24 hours with current flights).

 

EDIT: I'm curious as to what a scramjet plane would look like. Would it be a plane that flew up from departure via rockets into LEO and then dived to its destination at Mach 6 or so via scramjet? Haha, visiting space to get to your destination on Earth.

Edited March 23, 2010 by Krezack

[HoonDing]

I guess it'd look like a normal plane using a prototype engine like the ATREX that switches from normal turbofan/turbojet to ramjet/scramjet at high Mach numbers.

[Walsingham]

Th real question is whether I trust a bunch of minimum wage civvies to maintain a scramjet.

[Humodour]

Th real question is whether I trust a bunch of minimum wage civvies to maintain a scramjet.

 

Why the feck would they get minimum wage?!

[Guest The Architect]

Pretty cool. No doubt military uses will come first, but still, I can dig a 2 or 3 hour flight from Sydney to London (you'd be lucky to do it in 24 hours with current flights).

 

Don't worry Krezack, one day I'll strap you to a rocket and you'll get your 2-3 hour flight to London. Say hi to Wals while you're at it, and tell him to stop drinking warm beer.

[Gorth]

We could clean out some of the prisons by sending the inmates on a rocket to England. Just imagine the irony