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Old 30th Jan 2013, 21:38
  #47 (permalink)  
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Join Date: Jun 2009
Location: florida
Age: 81
Posts: 1,610
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Salute!

This is getting ridiculous about "names".

I have to agree with those here that do not think/believe the J-58 was in any way a "ram jet" once above 2.x M.

The clever engineers at Pratt figured out how to use all the air being crammed into the motor to use it in the burner. At the same time, they reduced some temperature and other bad things on the "core" engine. They also realized that you couldn't get a lotta thrust with a pure turbojet at the speeds they were trying to reach.

Had the J-58 been a combined cycle turbo-ramjet, it would have resembled the F100 that Pratt developed for the Eagle and Viper. An annular bypass, but a mechanism to close off most, if not all, air entering the core. The hot, compressed air from the intake would go directly to the "burner" section and act just as a traditional ram jet.

The J-58 did some of this, but the air being bypassed was nowhere near enough or hot enough to provide what is needed for a ram jet.

It should be noted that many of the early ( 1950 - 196x) turbojets had burners that could still add fuel to the unburned air that came thru the core. So the Pratt folks developed a way to bypass a lotta useless air and feed it directly to the burner and gain a lotta efficiency and thrust - up to a point.

A complete changover to a ram jet above 2.x M would have allowed the Blackbird a much higher speed/altitude, but the materials for the structure could not handle the heat. And the Blackbird did not have "thrusters" to control pitch, yaw and roll once really high - it was all aero forces on the control surfaces, shock waves and all.

The J-58 was a super motor, and it served us well for many years. But it was not a "turbo-ramjet".

That's my story, and I am stickin' to it.
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