NationStates Jolt Archive

PEA (Pure Evil Aeronautics) has begun investigating the possibilty of creating manned planes capable of sustaining flight speeds of over MACH 4 without the use of exotic materials or systems. Before this is possible several problems need to be solved.

1: Heat buildup on aircraft skin

2: Engines to power plane

3: Noise

4: Drag caused around body and wings

5: Cost

6: Endurance

As a basis of comparison a current model PEA-15(Current high-speed interceptor)
PEA-15
Cruise speed: Mach 3.01
Body temp at cruise: 350C
Sonic Boom overpressure: 1.23PSI
% "Exotic" metal: 77%
Cost: $65million

Current Progress:
(NO PLANE TESTED AS YET)
If other nation are interested a joint program can be set up.

bump

We have a plane that can do that already with ease, more detail in my sig, but to sum up its major aspects.

1: Skin is coated with ceramic layer that acts as a heat tile. Advances in ceramics since the time of the space shuttles mean it is more effective at resisting heat and isn't susceptible to peeling off. Ceramic coating can be applied to any shape, after it is produced.

2: We have very powerful shaftless jet turbines(essentially a jet turbine but the driveshaft has been moved out of the center, allowing for complete airflow, higher pressures, and a much more powerful combustion area).

3: Using a special reshape of the nose, we have been able to reduce sonic boom volume by 2/3rds(IRL the airforce was able to reduce a fighter's sonic boom volume by 1/3rd by using a special nosecone, so with the research we put into it, 2/3rds is doable)

4: Near frictionless carbon, several times slicker the teflon and many times tougher, can be applied to any shape. Technicians can't even stand up on the wings.

5: We can produce the fully upgraded plane for $73 million, but thats because it is our standard air-superiority weapon and we have the production done on a massive scale.

6: The shaftless turbine is more efficient than normal turbines, and uses hydrogen stored in a solid similar to wax that has a much higher energy density than gasoline or jet fuel.

We also use an exotic system called PFR that repels oncoming air with weakly charged plasma.

I'd also like to say that all of the above systems are patented in NS to us, so no stealing them.

OOC: Several thing of your simply won't work.
Your shaftless engines cannot do what you say. The shaft is needed for the venturi effect to work properly, without it you could not go into high mach speeds.
2/3 reduction is not possible from only a nose cone.
It's not the friction caused by the surface of the aircraft that cause huge drag probelm at high speeds, it's the shape of it. Areas ofd high pressure form infront of the wings increasing drag. (Pieoter@hotmail.com if you want to talk more)

IC: Thank you for you offer for providing an upgrade for or current interceptor but we must decline. We would like to build a new fighter from the ground up to maximise gains from the project.

Would you be interested in a joint program for the new fighter.

Chellis suggests the use of scramjets. If nothing else, they will provide the speed... The Chellian V-121 uses a newly developed chellian scramjet, that allows the plane a max speed of Mach 2, but with a very large and compact weight.

OOC: M2 won't start a Scramjet - they need speeds of higher than Mach 3 to start. Maybe a Ramjet-Scramjet hybrid, although despite my efforts to make a believable one I can't do it.

OOC: M2 won't start a Scramjet - they need speeds of higher than Mach 3 to start. Maybe a Ramjet-Scramjet hybrid, although despite my efforts to make a believable one I can't do it.

Chellis uses a form of RTOL to start its planes scramjets, although I dont see why a plane couldnt go at mach 2 with scramjets... Are you saying they wont work at mach 2, or they wont start until about mach 3? In that case, Im ok...

Mach 4 isn't really neccessary for a modern tech fighter. Anything higher than that is just inefficent, and too much of a strain in G-forces on the frame and on the pilot.

Mach 4 roughly translates to 1,326.488000 meters per second (m/sec), or 775.356418 kilometers per hour (km/hr), or 4,351.994751 feet per second (ft/sec), or 2,967.269148 miles per hour (mi/hr).

That means that every second the plane is going to move about 4,352 feet.

Standard human reaction time is 1.5 seconds

With the average human's visual range well under 200 feet, that means that in the time it takes for the pilot to react to something that is occuring near him, he will have already travelled 6,528 feet from it.

They won't start until Mach 3. What's RTOL?

The bulk of the problem will not be getting it to go that fast, but rather making an airframe that won't have a RCS the size of California.


Sileetris: I doubt you can patent Plasma Stealth..

For an engine you can use the good old ATR (Air Turbo Ramjet).

ooc: The only RL aircraft to my knowledge that have even come close to Mach 4 are Rocket Powered...

Anything over Mach 3 is generally considered HyperSonic, and the only experiments with Hypersonic aircraft have been for Extra-Atmospheric applications.

Scramjets only function at hypersonic speed (Mach 5+), Ramjets work below from about 400mh/h to ~Mach5

Agrigento: You seem to forget about a thing called RADAR, the role of an interceptor is not too look for things but rather chase them down.
Hypersonic is Mach 5+.
Again you forget the basic concpet of an interceptor, you are in your territory and not trying to hide. RCS can be influenced by a huge number of factors, in certain situation aircraft can has RCS 100x larger than their physical size.
Standard reaction time is 0.5seconds not 1.5seconds. Using your theory any modern jet powered aircraft is too fast.
Please be quiet until you have something useful to say


For engines, we are looking at something of a turbofan/ramjet hybrid.

Here are some hypothetical situations where MACH 4 is needed.

Situation 1:
A high speed(MACH 2) bomber formation is picked up heading for key military targets. Only at a sustained speed of MACH 4 could an interceptor have a chance at catching at destroying the planes, other aircraft would have throuble flying at fast as the bombers while a MACH 4 plane would have no trouble

Situation 2:
A civilian airliner is hijacked and heading for a major city, You have 25minutes before it will reach highly populated areas, Only aircraft situated close by would be able to destroy the target before it reaches the city unless you have a MACH 4 aircraft.

The Ineffable Airforce regularly flies a Mach 10 bomber. However, the HyperSoar flight pattern means it is unsuitable for a interceptor.
OOC: The American military is researching it at the mo':
Hypersoar bomber (http://www.globalsecurity.org/military/systems/aircraft/hypersoar.htm)

Use scramjets don't go making some hybrid up saying like scramjet and ramjet because if you don't know already that scramjet stands for supersonic ramjet. Heres a couple of pointers to show you:

1. Have very powerful engines to reach Mach 3 and then turn on your scramjet to power you to Mach 10 or whatever.

2. Don't use hydrogen use methene because hydrogen uses much more space than methene but when methene does ignite with oxygen it produces more energy than hydrogen yet with less fuel so that would be more economical.

3. Use chromanium which is an alloy not a made up metal. It is chrome and titanium mixed together to make a strong metal like chrome yet be flexible like titanium. The only problem is I'm the only one that ever did this alloy so I think your going to have to buy from me since I'm copyrighting it. But I'll sell you the metal free of no charge except shipping and handling.

4.Actually Humans can fly a plane up to Mach 7 and beyond because if your remember the X-15-A2 was piloted by all the pilots to beyond Mach 6 and to Mach 6.7. They didn't rely on any computers just their skills. Also I'm sure they could go to Mach 8 because they modified the X-15 to reach that speed but the program was cut before they could do that.

I hope these marks help you and sorry if I said anything wrong.

Scramjets only function at hypersonic speed (Mach 5+), Ramjets work below from about 400mh/h to ~Mach5

Agrigento: You seem to forget about a thing called RADAR, the role of an interceptor is not too look for things but rather chase them down.
Hypersonic is Mach 5+.
Again you forget the basic concpet of an interceptor, you are in your territory and not trying to hide. RCS can be influenced by a huge number of factors, in certain situation aircraft can has RCS 100x larger than their physical size.
Standard reaction time is 0.5seconds not 1.5seconds. Using your theory any modern jet powered aircraft is too fast.
Please be quiet until you have something useful to say


For engines, we are looking at something of a turbofan/ramjet hybrid.

Mach 4 is usually considered hypersonic by many nations, however I agree with you, it is Mach 5.

The basic concept of an interceptor is pointless. Why does a modern Air Force need an interceptor?

And no it is not .5, where did you get that figure? I got mine from the Brooklyn College Optical Research Lab... The average time it takes a human to react mechanically to any visual stimuli.

I don't know what the time for the average Fighter Pilot is however...


If it is an interceptor it must engage much slower enemies at such a high speed. Most dogfights occur below Mach 1, how can this thing take out < Mach 1 bombers with a Ramjet?

Aircraft that go over Mach 1 usually use that speed to drop ordance on targets, not to destroy enemy planes.

OOC: The shaft isn't needed for effective compression, I have several diagrams on my site showing how it is possible......

2/3rds reduction isnt possible by just nosecones, true, I should have been more clear, but it is easily possible with different body molding(the plane in question already had the proper shape, but the nosecone was needed to activate the effect).

There isn't a great solution to areas of high pressure building up on the front of wings, so we try to minimize its effects with smoother surfaces.

Agrigento: I never copyrighted plasma stealth, I copyrighted plasma based friction reduction...

IC: We appreciate your invitation to create a new aircraft but ou current one suits our needs perfectly.

Agrigento: I never copyrighted plasma stealth, I copyrighted plasma based friction reduction...

ooc: Sorry, I was half asleep when I wrote that, I know I was a bit snappy.

BLAH BLAH BLAH

An interceptor is still needed if you have a large land area, it is much more economical to have a small numner of high speed interceptor than a large amount of slower aircraft.

0.1 is the fastest possible time that a human can react too and 0.5 second is the average. A sprinter has a reaction time of around 0.12seconds.

Ramjets will work perfectly with any aircraft aslong as it's speeds is above 250mph.

NOW STFU and stop talking shit.

Sileetris: The use of supersonic aerofoils elimiate almost all the drag caused by olbique shotwaves forming in front of the wings, We only need to devise a system where they work well at slower speeds.

(I would like to see a shaftless engine produce anywhere near the same compression and the same mechanical efficient as a shafted one, But please how me the site)

4.Actually Humans can fly a plane up to Mach 7 and beyond because if your remember the X-15-A2 was piloted by all the pilots to beyond Mach 6 and to Mach 6.7. They didn't rely on any computers just their skills. Also I'm sure they could go to Mach 8 because they modified the X-15 to reach that speed but the program was cut before they could do that.

Course they can. The Nazi's developed some stuff which was piloted and would fly at eighteen times the speed of sound, and don't forget how fast the shuttle goes.

Wouldn't it just be more cost effective to develop a more conventional interceptor that can carry more capable air-to-air weapons, instead?

The human body isn't limited by speed, just acceleration or G forces. (It's not like an interceptor has to dogfight).

The SR-71 used a turbojet-ramjet hybrid. Perhaps you could take a look at that.

Yeah, that's what we're doing. We have a high altitude fighter which can go upto about Mach 3 but it has a BVRAAM which is powered by a RAMJet/SCRAMJet. Once it reaches Mach 5, the SCRAMJet hits in and powers it home to the target with a no escape zone in excess of 200 miles.

ooc: Pure Evil, man, step away from your keyboard and take a deep breath... Did I insult you? Did I call you an idiot...NO

So put things in perspective, and calm down...honestly man its just a game..


I've worked as a lab assistant for too many summers to have you tell me that average reaction time is .5 seconds...

All I am doing is warning you. An interceptor that travelled that fast would be too inefficent to use, unless you have just one airbase in the center of a nation the size of Russia...which is ridiculous to even think about. Why spend billions upon billions of dollars to make million-dollar airplanes that fire million-dollar missiles for an unrealized threat.

I'm not saying the pilot won't be able to handle the plane, I never said that! All I mean is that it would be hell for him to shoot down <1 Mach bombers, coming out of Mach 4.


The distance from Moscow to Los Angeles is just over 6,000 miles.

Mach 4 = 2,967.269148 miles per hour (mi/hr)

That means in just about 2 hours you can travel from Moscow to LA, is that really necessary?

The distance from New York City to Paris is about 3,620 miles. At Mach 4 that flight would take about 1.22 hours.

Do you really need that?


If your answer is yes, go ahead with this plane, and I will shut up for the rest of the damn thread.