Capot
9th Feb 2011, 18:09
I got deflected while doing some research, and found myself reading the Melbourne Argus issue for Wednesday 21/2/45, price 2d. The article below (p16) had nothing to do with what I wanted, but it caught my eye.
For interest then........ and there's a lot of other fascinating stuff as well....
PLANES MAY TRAVEL AT 1,500 M PH
Will Turn Time Back on Itself
From LINDSAY CLINCH, Special Correspondent of THE ARGUS in New York.
Aeroplanes will travel 1,500 miles an hour within the next 10 or 15 years, says Peyton Magruder, one of America's leading plane designers.
That means that going west, say, from Melbourne to Perth or Melbourne to London plane travellers will be able to reach their destination at earlier (local) time on the same day they set out than the time of their departure. Or, putting it yet another way, they will be out speeding the sun.
"We don't know what those aircraft will look like," says Magruder, "but any aeronautics engineer will tell you the same thing about the terrific air speeds of the future. The planes will be jet or rocket propelled.
"The German V2 goes much faster than 1,500 mph, and travels 60 miles high. When technical difficulties are overcome, and they will be, what is to prevent us from putting passengers in such aircraft and sending them on a trip?"
Propeller-driving internal combustion engines are approaching their speed and altitude ceilings, says the American magazine Life. By scavenging exhaust gases and ejecting them through jet nozzles and turbo superchargers extra thrust has been given to aeroplanes. But efforts to get speeds above 450 mph from the conventional system have begun to give diminishing returns.
One solution is to harness a gas turbine to a propeller to give combined propeller and jet propulsion. This adds an extra 100 or so miles an hour. But this system reaches its speed ceiling when the speed of the
propeller tips reaches the speed of sound (about 760 miles an hour).
SHOCK WAVES
From this point Jet propulsion launches aerodynamics forward into the velocities that have hitherto been the realm of ballistics. The barrier to this realm, already challenged by gas turbine-jet propulsion, is the speed of sound.
Shock waves generated at this speed vastly increase air resistance and drag and set up vibrations and flutter that can pound the aircraft to pieces. Aircraft design must be radically changed before aeroplanes can cross this barrier.
At 800 mph it is thought the possibility of efficient ram compression will bring the athodyd into the picture. The simplest air-breathing jet engine, the athodyd (Aero THermO DYnamic Duct), has no moving parts. It is nothing but a pipe, shaped like a nozzle. Inside is a fuel injector and spark plug. To work, the athodyd must already be moving forward at considerable speed, with air ushing through it. Just inside the athodyd's mouth the inrushing - air momentarily slows down. The slowed-down air is simultaneously compressed by the still fast-moving air entering behind it, which acts like a ram. The compressed air goes into combustion with fuel and the hot gases expand. This expansion takes place in the nozzle-shaped after-end of the athodyd, which steps up the velocity of gases, jets them to the rear. Thus the athodyd pushes the air out faster than it comes in. By reaction the athodyd moves forward. Unlike the reaction pipe engine of the German flying bomb, which is self-starting, the athodyd will have to be brought up to its critical speed by an auxiliary power plant, a gas-turbine or rocket engine.
For interest then........ and there's a lot of other fascinating stuff as well....
PLANES MAY TRAVEL AT 1,500 M PH
Will Turn Time Back on Itself
From LINDSAY CLINCH, Special Correspondent of THE ARGUS in New York.
Aeroplanes will travel 1,500 miles an hour within the next 10 or 15 years, says Peyton Magruder, one of America's leading plane designers.
That means that going west, say, from Melbourne to Perth or Melbourne to London plane travellers will be able to reach their destination at earlier (local) time on the same day they set out than the time of their departure. Or, putting it yet another way, they will be out speeding the sun.
"We don't know what those aircraft will look like," says Magruder, "but any aeronautics engineer will tell you the same thing about the terrific air speeds of the future. The planes will be jet or rocket propelled.
"The German V2 goes much faster than 1,500 mph, and travels 60 miles high. When technical difficulties are overcome, and they will be, what is to prevent us from putting passengers in such aircraft and sending them on a trip?"
Propeller-driving internal combustion engines are approaching their speed and altitude ceilings, says the American magazine Life. By scavenging exhaust gases and ejecting them through jet nozzles and turbo superchargers extra thrust has been given to aeroplanes. But efforts to get speeds above 450 mph from the conventional system have begun to give diminishing returns.
One solution is to harness a gas turbine to a propeller to give combined propeller and jet propulsion. This adds an extra 100 or so miles an hour. But this system reaches its speed ceiling when the speed of the
propeller tips reaches the speed of sound (about 760 miles an hour).
SHOCK WAVES
From this point Jet propulsion launches aerodynamics forward into the velocities that have hitherto been the realm of ballistics. The barrier to this realm, already challenged by gas turbine-jet propulsion, is the speed of sound.
Shock waves generated at this speed vastly increase air resistance and drag and set up vibrations and flutter that can pound the aircraft to pieces. Aircraft design must be radically changed before aeroplanes can cross this barrier.
At 800 mph it is thought the possibility of efficient ram compression will bring the athodyd into the picture. The simplest air-breathing jet engine, the athodyd (Aero THermO DYnamic Duct), has no moving parts. It is nothing but a pipe, shaped like a nozzle. Inside is a fuel injector and spark plug. To work, the athodyd must already be moving forward at considerable speed, with air ushing through it. Just inside the athodyd's mouth the inrushing - air momentarily slows down. The slowed-down air is simultaneously compressed by the still fast-moving air entering behind it, which acts like a ram. The compressed air goes into combustion with fuel and the hot gases expand. This expansion takes place in the nozzle-shaped after-end of the athodyd, which steps up the velocity of gases, jets them to the rear. Thus the athodyd pushes the air out faster than it comes in. By reaction the athodyd moves forward. Unlike the reaction pipe engine of the German flying bomb, which is self-starting, the athodyd will have to be brought up to its critical speed by an auxiliary power plant, a gas-turbine or rocket engine.