Thunderbird 2 was a pure lifting body design, no lighter than air component at all.
The plans show that main thrust was from a nuclear reactor which used liquid sodium (or maybe Sodium-Potassium alloy) as a heat exchanger to superheat the air flow through the ramjets. Liquid fuel rockets were in the two tailpipes and provided extra/initial takeoff thrust, while there were four turbofans in the tail cross section for low speed cruise. (i.e. below 2000mph). Max speed was 5000mph
The VTOL lift was provided by another set of liquid fuel rockets
You may laugh, but its as credible as a functional LTA machine
Last edited by jamesdevice; 11th Sep 2011 at 16:19.