Re:Superfast military plane hit Mach 20 before crash
by VladRussian on Tuesday August 23, 2011 @06:26PM
(#2918625)
>...vs. limits on the basic physics. Still the main limitation seems to be the far lower thrust-to-weight ratio.
that exactly the basic physics limit of the scramjet that i was talking about : "the other side of the same issue - trying to impact even small amount of additional momentum on the already fast moving air"
2. Scramjet's have already been demonstrated at over Mach 9.5 and are still more efficient than rockets at those speeds. (aka more thrust per unit fuel.)
3. Scramjet's are actually fairly simple designs compared to a traditional get engines. (Modeling and testing them however is much harder.)
Granted, there are plenty of downsides which is why we have not built anything like that. But, the issues are far more in line with heat dissipation and drag vs. limits on the basic physics. Still the main limitation seems to be the far lower thrust-to-weight ratio.