The SR-72 will be armed?

[Schneibster]

http://www.businessinsider.com/lockheed ... ne-2013-11

http://www.aviationweek.com/Blogs.aspx? ... acb834b2e9

So they're finally dumping info on Aurora.

USAF never dumps a manned mission profile without a better airframe to fill it, and USAF FOUGHT to dump the SR-71 1989-'98.

TBCC, turbine to M3 and ram (not scram) to M6 looks to be a far easier propulsion system design than the scamjets. Late '80s tech; "fly by 2018" is smokescreen.

Actually it's probably a decade or more old, and 2018 was a smokescreen.

[Schneibster]

DOD has been wanting a hypersonic attack craft for more than a decade.

Well, hypercruise is one thing- remember that at Mach 6 if you maneuver your flame goes out. And that's if your aircraft doesn't tumble, in which case you might as well be a frog in a blender. If they ever find the cockpit they'll be scraping you out with a shovel.

They can save the expense of an ejection seat anyway. And the weight. If you eject at Mach 6 they'll never find anything of you big enough to identify.

[williatw]

http://www.businessinsider.com/lockheed ... ne-2013-11

http://www.aviationweek.com/Blogs.aspx? ... acb834b2e9

So they're finally dumping info on Aurora.
USAF never dumps a manned mission profile without a better airframe to fill it, and USAF FOUGHT to dump the SR-71 1989-'98.

TBCC, turbine to M3 and ram (not scram) to M6 looks to be a far easier propulsion system design than the scamjets. Late '80s tech; "fly by 2018" is smokescreen.

That's the first thing I thought when I heard about it too. I also wonder about this:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ayaks

Using a magnetic field to ionize/and or use ionized air for propulsion and to reduce friction on the aircraft's airframe is ingenious. Can't believe we don't have an American version of this Russian project, that the link says was inspired by the American Aurora program.

[Schneibster]

Say, does that thing look like the D-21?

There's an idea, launch it from a supercruise-capable platform.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lockheed_D-21

I've seen this airframe up close in person:



Just below the M-21's right engine, you can see the top half of the yellow engine startup module, or "start-cart," designated A-330, which originally used two Buick "Wildcat" 325hp 405 CID V8 engines to spin the turbine shaft up to starting speed for one engine, then moved to the other engine to start it, before the aircraft could take off. Later models of the start-cart, like the one in this photograph, used Chevy big-blocks, mostly the well-known so-called "396" (actually a 402 CID V8 capable of 375hp and far more comfortable at 6000 rpm than the Buicks). Eventually, a compressed-air starting system eliminated all these complicated maneuvers and start-carts and so forth, but this was only ever installed at the main operating bases, and these aircraft had to have alternative landing fields; the start-carts ensured they could ferry themselves back home, simply by the start-cart being brought to where they had landed.

This cart is one of the Chevy ones; there is a picture of a green one with the Wildcats further down in the SR-71 article, IIRC.

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/c ... CKBIRD.jpg

Bandwidth warning for the second picture. This is the same airframe, D6940, taken in panorama from opposite the base of the engine "spike." You can barely see the top of the fuselage of the D-21 over the M-21's engine in this one.

This picture must have been taken with special permission, because the Air Force has requested that the plaques that explain how the engine works, and most views of the engine, not be photographed. Note the missing pieces in the lower right. Note the red plywood in the exits of the engine nacelles.

[paperburn1]

In theory there is a seat than can get you out at mach six. I would not want to try.
Seat weight
** Empty, minimal version: 95 kg
** Empty, with standard features: 110 kg
** With standard features, full rescue and survival equipment: 160 kg
** Standard throw weight: 240 kg (seat, equipment, pilot, gear)
** Maximum throw weight: 300 kg
** Baseplate, firing cylinders and mountings: 30 kg
** Total system weight: 140...200 kg

Dimensions
** Length, compacted: 85 cm
** Length, maximum recline, extension and legroom: 200 cm
*** Not necessary to provide, but pilot height or recline might be limited
** Height: 120 cm compacted, 200 cm maximum
** Width: 90 cm minimum, 110 cm maximum

Pilot requirements
** Minimum pilot weight: 20 kg
** Maximum pilot weight (with gear): 140 kg
** Minimum pilot height: 130 cm
** Maximum pilot height: 220 cm
** Seat use training time: 75 hours on land plus 15 hours in flight

Ejection conditions
** Altitude: -50m...60,000 m
*** Negative altitude presumes underwater ejection, positive is limited by seat's air supply to pressurize the helmet, and can be extended by special gear.
** Airspeed, at sea level: 0...520m/s (Mach 1.5)
** Maximum airspeed, absolute: 1900m/s at 30,000m (Mach 6)
*** Absolute airspeed is limited by the heat produced by atmospheric reentry from Mach 5 and above at extreme altitude. Also, it presumes there are no vertical fins on the centreline, otherwise they might not be cleared due to speed.
** Maximum airspeed, medium altitude: 1050KEAS, or 900m/s at 10,000m (Mach 3.0)
*** These numbers include reserve; aircraft actually rated for these speeds should install the high-speed modification.

Ergonomics
** Minimum recline: 10 degrees
** Maximum recline: 60 degrees
** G-feedback effective range: -4g...+11g
*** This is not the operational range for the pilot or for the seat , but just the range where the G-feedback is still effective.
** Ejection g-force, typical: 8g
** Ejection g-force, maximum: 14g
** G-force onset rate, normal: 400g/second

[Schneibster]

They could go like the F-111 or the B-1 and B-2 and have those ejection modules. Kinda heavy for anything with less than four engines. That's a lot of what made the F-111 less maneuverable than they hoped.

You're right, I wouldn't want to ride one of those out either. If you're not quick all those inconvenient parts that stick out are liable to get broke off. You know, arms, legs, heads.

[Schneibster]

Oh, one little note about the D-21: the last launch of it failed catastrophically. Instead of a mild outside loop (which causes the D-21 to separate as soon as its let go, no matter what its engine does) this test attempted to launch the D-21 from level flight. It was a disaster; the D-21 failed to fully separate, and damaged the back of the M-21. The pilots ejected (all the variants had the capsule-ejection system) but one was drowned when he couldn't get free of his capsule in time. Both aircraft tumbled, fragmented, and burned, and presumably fell into the sea. One assumes the Glomar Explorer had a little visit to the site later to see if they could find anything.

So this is obviously not a slam-dunk.

[Schneibster]

One of the things to understand about Mach 6 is if you maneuver you are doomed. As long as you're going Mach 6 you're not turning except the least little bit. Simply becoming asymmetric is potentially instantly deadly, should a vortex erupt and suck a wingtip into itself. The wing begins to disintegrate, and suddenly you are no longer aerodynamic; and anything that is not aerodynamic at Mach 6 melts. Not over seconds. Over milliseconds. Bye.

Never mind a shuttle or a capsule coming down; those start out at Mach 23. At that temperature most materials are plasma. Only ceramics can withstand the extreme temperatures and only if there is no flaw. Mach 6 is not as bad as that; but it's close. You can still make things out of the highest temperature alloys equipped with subsurface liquid cooling, like in the SR-71 and its sisters. But if you go much above Mach 6, you'll need ceramics that must be inspected with microscopes after each flight, and that gets expensive fast.

Now, the number of seconds that living humans have piloted aircraft other than space shuttles and space capsules over Mach 6 is less than three digits; less than 100 seconds, ever, except while strapped down enduring reentry. That (all the reentries together) might triple the total and bring it above 100 seconds.

OTOH computer chips can withstand hundreds of gs, and even hard drives have been improved to sense and lock to withstand 23 gs to harden them against explosions nearby. Our inventions will be far more durable than we are. A quivering bag of protein jello molded around calcium phosphate sticks and stinking, belching, farting, and breathing forth various unsavory compounds in its incontinence. Disgusting. Floppy. Stinky. Slimy. Weak.

[djolds1]

It's not hard to make a rocket go hypersonic. To make a combined cycle engine that can transition through the dead zone around Mach 3 is the hardest part.

Add a rocket stage and make this a marginal RBCC engine. The dead zone is M2.5-M4, "only" about 500m/s dv. Add some oxidizer and a small-ish ejector rocket engine, either recessed or in the ram airway.

But yeah, if Lock-Mart can make a reasonable case, they'll get finding. DOD has been wanting a hypersonic attack craft for more than a decade.

The GWoT has absorbed most funding for the last 12 years - colonial war emphasis is on things like MQ-9 Reapers, not systems to face down geopolitical peers. And a huge proportion of the "other" acquisitions programs (F35, LCS, etc.) have been duds. There's been no money for the B3 concept. And do note that virtually all of the "public" hypersonic efforts have been "light a match in a hurricane" scamjets like the X-51. TBCC/ RBCC is simpler.

TBCC, turbine to M3 and ram (not scram) to M6 looks to be a far easier propulsion system design than the scamjets. Late '80s tech; "fly by 2018" is smokescreen.

That's the first thing I thought when I heard about it too. I also wonder about this:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ayaks

Using a magnetic field to ionize/and or use ionized air for propulsion and to reduce friction on the aircraft's airframe is ingenious. Can't believe we don't have an American version of this Russian project, that the link says was inspired by the American Aurora program.

The West didn't even think of the Shkval Supercavitating Rocket Torpedo, the Tuned-Circuit Bug, the Tokamak, or Kontakt-5 anti-long-rod Explosive Reactive Armor either. Sometimes the Russians can have a very elliptical but inspired way of looking at things.

Tho the tokamak may have been KGB Active-Measures sabotage.