Mach 5 Future Jet Can Fly Anywhere in the World in 4 Hours
Ron Czapala
Posts: 2,418
http://www.popularmechanics.com/how-to/blog/skylon-sabre-mach-5-jet-flies-anywhere-in-four-hours-17540658
British firm Reaction Engines is building a plane that can zip almost anywhere in the world within four hours, cool itself by 1000 degrees Celsius in a fraction of a second, and even go into space. The European Space Agency is interested in the futuristic plane as a way to lower the cost of future launches.
Reaction calls the aircraft the Skylon, and it imagines the plane carrying 300 passengers at mach 5. It's powered by SABRE, which sounds like a villainous spy organization but actually stands for Synergetic Air-Breathing Rocket Engine. Those engines could be cooled to -160 degrees Celsius using compressed helium. The $1.1 billion plane would be 276 feet long—40 feet longer than a Boeing 747.
Armed with liquid oxygen engines, the Skylon could even enter Earth orbit; ceramic composites would prevent damage from re-entry. The plane could be hitting runways in just five years, making for some of the most fascinating passenger voyages possible.
Comments
So much gibberish in those stories I don't know where to start.
Do they even have a video of any kind of trial run of this thing?
Are there any carriers lining up with $1.1 Billion to place some orders?
Bad wording for an aviation reporter: "The plane could be hitting runways in just five years"
There might be some useful tech in there but the hype is crazy.
http://www.reactionengines.co.uk/index.html
http://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-17874276
http://vimeo.com/45136248 Check 2 minutes into video.
I also don't think hypersonic speeds and human cattle cars go together after seeing how the SR-71 is put together and what it takes to get it airborne.
So the magic is in the heat exchanger. I might worry that it requires helium which seems to be in short supply.
Erco has the answer - use Hydrogen! http://forums.parallax.com/showthread.php/158750-Erco-on-Letterman-circa-1989
New toys for kids - including controllable dirigibles that use Hydrogen instead of that silly Helium. Burns better when they crash (looks like you were close to setting the stage lighting on fire there, and managed to set someone's hair alight as well).
But seriously, the precooler is the key. Carnot cycle - isothermal compression, adiabatic compression, isothermal expansion, adiabatic expansion. Air comes in and at those speeds heats up due to pressure, so pre-cooling it makes sense. But how much liquid helium do you need to carry with you?
Tech wise, no, but the great thing about drones, is they do not need to.
You can put up dozens, even hundreds of drones, and get better long term coverage then a SR-71 ever could.
John Abshier
Mars Rover found water, and organic molecules, Methane.
The Air Force did a commercial that indicated that the sum of
human knowledge would double in the next century.
It will be a job just to keep up with information about the changes!
Absolutely. If this design has any hope of commercialization it will have to use something else for cooling.
Thanks for that, Heater. I hadn't tried looking before. The potential for efficient space entry is where it's really at, imho. Rockets for Earth lift-off are insanely wasteful.
Fusion reactors, which will produce plenty of helium, should be in widespread use by the time this is practical.
However Sabre engine(if it ever makes through flight test) is not a solution to either company and at best is 5+ years away from use. That assumes you have a airframe that can handle it.
Google what happened to the Air Forces WaveRider scramjet when it hits those speeds - it tends to break up.
In short we are very long ways away from seeing a commercial use for this sort of speed, if ever.