CliveL
Thank you for your reply, what you describe is absolutely fascinating; It seems that composites may not be the panacea for all aircraft structural problems after all. I confess. I'm afraid that I did intentially use that awful pun (sorry
).
Regarding strucural materials, I remember reading what Ted Talbot wrote in the manuscript for his brilliant work 'Mach 2 and Bit' (not sure if he ever did get it published) when he spoke about the Bristol 188. He said something like 'the never to be repeated experiment of making an aircraft structure out of stainless steel'. One can only imagine the manufaturing problems that Brisol must have had with that one. (I seem to remember that the strucure was welded and not rivetted together
).
Yes the US now has a supercruise aircraft (the F-22 Raptor) but not of course for up to 3 hours of up to 400°K either. (Although a truly superb aircraft nonetheless). And as you say, military structural material airworthiness standards in no way apply to a civil project.
I can only imagine what the original Bristol (for the Type 223?) mixing unit you described must have looked like. The Concorde unit certainly dominated the whole underfloor picture in quite a sizeable area down the back; here's a diagram of the beasty:
For all it's complexity however I can never recollect any problems occuring there.
It looked far more intimidating in the flesh under the floor however.
Best regards
Dude
