X43 Hits Mach 7!

Chardok · Post by **Chardok** » 2004-03-29 09:30am

Wait a minute....a cvilian hypersonic aircraft? Would not the passengers need to be in fairly decent shape to be able to withstand the G forces? Oh, and no kids, pregnant people, old folks, anyone with heart problem, sinus trouble, equilibrium problems, etc. that is to say....oh fuck it...I'm probably spouting bullshit again. But seriously, the G. forces seem like a pretty serious issue.

The Kernel · Post by **The Kernel** » 2004-03-29 09:34am

Chardok wrote:Wait a minute....a cvilian hypersonic aircraft? Would not the passengers need to be in fairly decent shape to be able to withstand the G forces? Oh, and no kids, pregnant people, old folks, anyone with heart problem, sinus trouble, equilibrium problems, etc. that is to say....oh fuck it...I'm probably spouting bullshit again. But seriously, the G. forces seem like a pretty serious issue.

Why should acceleration be a problem? A hypersonic plane has a higher top speed then a conventional jet, but that just means that it has to spend more time accelerating at the same rate, which doesn't take nearly as long as you might think in the first place. Hell, most of the time between take off and achieving cruising speeds is actually spent gaining altitude, not accelrating.

Chardok · Post by **Chardok** » 2004-03-29 09:40am

The Kernel wrote:
Chardok wrote:Wait a minute....a cvilian hypersonic aircraft? Would not the passengers need to be in fairly decent shape to be able to withstand the G forces? Oh, and no kids, pregnant people, old folks, anyone with heart problem, sinus trouble, equilibrium problems, etc. that is to say....oh fuck it...I'm probably spouting bullshit again. But seriously, the G. forces seem like a pretty serious issue.
Why should acceleration be a problem? A hypersonic plane has a higher top speed then a conventional jet, but that just means that it has to spend more time accelerating at the same rate, which doesn't take nearly as long as you might think in the first place. Hell, most of the time between take off and achieving cruising speeds is actually spent gaining altitude, not accelrating.

But wouldn't you have to be seated the whole time? That'd be awhile if the acceleration was done at a safe rate. I have to say that the few times I have flown, the takeoff acceleration was uncomfortable, to have that prolonged to, say, several minutes.....anyway...just doesn't seem practical, is all.

The Kernel · Post by **The Kernel** » 2004-03-29 09:45am

Chardok wrote: But wouldn't you have to be seated the whole time? That'd be awhile if the acceleration was done at a safe rate. I have to say that the few times I have flown, the takeoff acceleration was uncomfortable, to have that prolonged to, say, several minutes.....anyway...just doesn't seem practical, is all.

Chardok, the shaking you feel during takeoff is not mere acceleration g-forces. In fact, most of the acceleration is done in the air, and you barely feel it because you aren't increasing your speed all that fast.

Howedar · Post by **Howedar** » 2004-03-29 12:34pm

Let's play with some numbers.

Let's assume that the aircraft is going Mach 7 at sea level (because I remember the speed of sound at sea level and don't feel like working it out at 60,000 feet). So the aircraft is going 7*340 = 2400m/s at full speed. My car does 0-60mph in ten seconds, an acceleration that you can barely notice. That's 0-27 m/s in 10s, or 2.7 m/s².

Let's apply that same acceleration to our hypothetical aircraft. V = at, so t = V/a. (2400 m/s) / (2.7 m/s²) = 890s, or 15min. This is actually lower than the time a typical airliner spends accelerating.

So no, the acceleration would be perfectly innocuous. We're not talking about an Amerika-Bomber or something here.

Knife · Post by **Knife** » 2004-03-29 12:41pm

The Kernel wrote:
You still have to make it economical which is a much bigger hurdle then developing a working hypersonic jet. There are some serious limits to how fuel efficient a hypersonic jet can be, and this demonstration, while impressive, does nothing to solve those issues.

In any case, if the government is serious about developing hypersonic planes for civilian use, what they need to do is start funneling some subsidies into airplane manufacturers just like they did during the SST development (which they eventually pulled which is why it was canned).

True, but like alot of the space program, the initial cost of developement is too expensive to ask the private sector to do, because you know they won't. So the goverment doing the intitial development for military purposes will hopefully get it to the point where the private sector can sink its teeth into it and get it to the point where it can be used for commercial uses.

SWPIGWANG · Post by **SWPIGWANG** » 2004-03-29 03:04pm

Chardok wrote:But wouldn't you have to be seated the whole time? That'd be awhile if the acceleration was done at a safe rate. I have to say that the few times I have flown, the takeoff acceleration was uncomfortable, to have that prolonged to, say, several minutes.....anyway...just doesn't seem practical, is all.

And after several more minutes, you'd be at your destination.

It is not like we are talking about grueling 12hr flights or anything....

Rogue 9 · Post by **Rogue 9** » 2004-03-29 05:27pm

Peregrin Toker wrote:
Rogue 9 wrote: Bullshit. F-111 is a strike bomber, despite the designation. It wouldn't be flying escort for anything; when it was still in operation it usually got an escort itself.
I don't know... of course, it's possible that the USAF has another secret aircraft which bears a striking resemblance to a F-111 from a long distance but otherwise has nothing in common with it.

Occam might have something to say about that...

Further, why would they modify a B-52 when a KC-135 would work just as well, and in fact better?
Okay, I can't remember if the RAF officer actually identified the refuelling aircraft...

Fine.

As for enlongated triangle, you pretty adequately described an F-117.
Wrong - he made a drawing of what he saw, and it looked NOTHING like a F-117. (the sighted aircraft was at least the length of a F-111, and didn't have the vaguely W-shaped tail of the F-117)

Handily, an F-111 isn't all that much longer than an F-117, if at all. Its a strike bomber, not a heavy bomber.

There's a very good reason why no known aircraft leaves "donuts on a rope" contrails. There is no possible engine or wing configuration that would leave such a trail and still fly. That's a cartoon thing.
What about experimental engine types which are being kept completely secret to anyone outside the airforce and the corporations which manufacture them?

BTW - what about the unidentified sonic booms, then? Those which even aviation experts can't explain?

Tell me, what possible configuration would produce rings of smoke at regular intervals, as opposed to a continuous contrail, even a wide, annular one? That would suggest an engine that's pulsing in some way, rather than producing continuous thrust. That's no way to fly anything at subsonic speeds, much less hypersonic.

Howedar · Post by **Howedar** » 2004-03-29 05:43pm

There are pulsejets in design right now, but they would not produce a pulsed contrail. The pulsing is incredibly rapid. Pulsing frequency low enough to be visible in the contrail would shake the aircraft apart. Not a good thing for what is supposedly a photorecon aircraft.

That in itself is probably the most damning point. An aircraft can only have a pulsed contrail if the thrust is pulsed. Even a pulse of a few cycles per second is going to make an aircraft that is a truly atrocious camera platform.

Post by **Sea Skimmer** » 2004-03-29 06:01pm

Peregrin Toker wrote:
I can prove it.

No you can't, if you think what you've posted is proof you need your head examined.

1. Back in the eighties (I can't remember when) on the US Military budget appeared something called "Project Aurora" which a lot of money apparently was spent on. So the American armed forces have definately worked on some kind of Aurora project.

No such thing ever happened. What did happen is Boeing took out a paten on a very basic design for a hypersonic plane they called Aurora. Now why exactly would they take out a patent on something so fucking secret? And why would the US military use a name already used for Canadian P-3's? We don't like replicating names; it causes confusion and lawsuits (this is why the F-16 is the Fighting Falcon BTW, A French executive jet already had recently taken the name Falcon)

2. People living in the vicinity of secret air bases (not just Area 51) occassionally report jet trails resembling "donuts on a rope" (No known jet aircraft leave such trails) as well as sonic booms distinctly different from those of known supersonic aircraft. (and such reports also come from retired Air Force personnel and other people with knowledge about aviation) So the USAF have some kind of supersonic aircraft which is top secret.

Ex military personal and people living near military bases have also reported thousands of UFO landings. The donuts on a rope contrails defy logic, a pulsed engine makes zero sence for a high speed aircraft, as does the distrinctly diferent sonic boom BS. Sonic booms don't get different, they just get louder.

3. A RAF officer (I think) - or some other type of British guy with a lot of knowledge about military aircraft - has reported seeing in broad daylight a trio of F-111s escorting an unidentified aircraft resembling an elongated black triangle, while said mystery plane was refuelling in-flight from a modified B-52. So the USA (or some other NATO power) has a triangular aircraft which Britain doesn't know of... officially.
Also, similar craft have been sighted repeatedly in Scotland, where the USAF IIRC have some of its European bases.

Actually there's a photo of the alleged sighting over Scotland, I've seen it and it looks pretty blatantly fake, the aircraft are all dark despite it being daylight and are out of scale.

To be honest, I don't think these aircraft are the same - but the black triangular aircraft is most likely supersonic and definately secret.

No its most likely utter bullshit.

Admiral Valdemar · Post by **Admiral Valdemar** » 2004-03-29 06:02pm

Howedar wrote:There are pulsejets in design right now, but they would not produce a pulsed contrail. The pulsing is incredibly rapid. Pulsing frequency low enough to be visible in the contrail would shake the aircraft apart. Not a good thing for what is supposedly a photorecon aircraft.

That in itself is probably the most damning point. An aircraft can only have a pulsed contrail if the thrust is pulsed. Even a pulse of a few cycles per second is going to make an aircraft that is a truly atrocious camera platform.

The pulse-wave detonation engines (PDEs) that are being researched work at around 2.5kHz, compare this to normal pulsejets which only fire a few hundred times a second. The idea that the doughnuts-on-a-string contrails are from a Black Project stationed at Groom Lake and likely the Aurora isn't new. I can't say the contrails would fit the PDE hypothesis, even if the Aurora/Black Knight/Switchblade aircraft in question used the fuselage as the aerospike for external detonation of LH2 or liquid methane.

Post by **Sea Skimmer** » 2004-03-29 06:12pm

Peregrin Toker wrote:
I don't know... of course, it's possible that the USAF has another secret aircraft which bears a striking resemblance to a F-111 from a long distance but otherwise has nothing in common with it.

Logic says that's pretty fucking unlikely and history also shows that highly trained personal people can confuse massive four engine bombers with single engine fighters at long distances.

Okay, I can't remember if the RAF officer actually identified the refuelling aircraft...

The picture shows a KC-135, which for some reason (the fact that the pictures fake most likely) is the same size as the F-111's.

Wrong - he made a drawing of what he saw, and it looked NOTHING like a F-117. (the sighted aircraft was at least the length of a F-111, and didn't have the vaguely W-shaped tail of the F-117)

You can't clearly see the F-117's tail from below you know. But I guess a single eyewitness account and an editied photo beat out all other logic and a total lack of any hard evidence.

What about experimental engine types which are being kept completely secret to anyone outside the airforce and the corporations which manufacture them?

As noted by others a pulsed engine would be a horrible idea, and the fact that all you can do is appeal to the possibility of yet more logical secret programs isn't helping your case.

BTW - what about the unidentified sonic booms, then? Those which even aviation experts can't explain?

You made the claim; lets see some proof of it. But that will be a bit hard for you, since it's a claim of something that makes no sense and that's suppose to be occurring in a nation, which is home to several thousand supersonic fighters. To round it all of the reports mostly come from around Nellis Air Force base... the world's largest military aircraft training range and one devoid of noise restrictions.

Howedar · Post by **Howedar** » 2004-03-29 06:27pm

Thank you AV, my terminology was poor. I was refering to pulse-wave detonation engines, not to the archaic pulsejets on such things as the V-1.

Admiral Valdemar · Post by **Admiral Valdemar** » 2004-03-30 01:03pm

Curiously, someone on another board has brought up the Switchblade concept and someone who's an engineer in the USAF said there is a patch for it which basically means it is a real project (I have to question that). There is also a patent..

Peregrin Toker · Post by **Peregrin Toker** » 2004-03-30 02:43pm

Sea Skimmer wrote:
Wrong - he made a drawing of what he saw, and it looked NOTHING like a F-117. (the sighted aircraft was at least the length of a F-111, and didn't have the vaguely W-shaped tail of the F-117)
You can't clearly see the F-117's tail from below you know. But I guess a single eyewitness account and an editied photo beat out all other logic and a total lack of any hard evidence.

The reported aircraft had delta wings, which the F-117 doesn't.

Actually there's a photo of the alleged sighting over Scotland, I've seen it and it looks pretty blatantly fake, the aircraft are all dark despite it being daylight and are out of scale.

As for the photo being edited - the photo wasn't produced by the original spotter - it was made by some desperate hoaxer later as a means of corroboration.

. To round it all of the reports mostly come from around Nellis Air Force base... the world's largest military aircraft training range and one devoid of noise restrictions.

You're sure that Nellis AFB isn't home to aircraft which are virtually unknown to the public?

Ex military personal and people living near military bases have also reported thousands of UFO landings.

Many UFO sightings are caused by secret military aircraft.

Rogue 9 · Post by **Rogue 9** » 2004-03-30 02:57pm

Peregrin Toker wrote:
Sea Skimmer wrote:
Wrong - he made a drawing of what he saw, and it looked NOTHING like a F-117. (the sighted aircraft was at least the length of a F-111, and didn't have the vaguely W-shaped tail of the F-117)
You can't clearly see the F-117's tail from below you know. But I guess a single eyewitness account and an editied photo beat out all other logic and a total lack of any hard evidence.
The reported aircraft had delta wings, which the F-117 doesn't.

The F-117 is shaped like a friggin' delta!

Actually there's a photo of the alleged sighting over Scotland, I've seen it and it looks pretty blatantly fake, the aircraft are all dark despite it being daylight and are out of scale.
As for the photo being edited - the photo wasn't produced by the original spotter - it was made by some desperate hoaxer later as a means of corroboration.
Way to cover your ass there...
You're sure that Nellis AFB isn't home to aircraft which are virtually unknown to the public?

Unsupported assertion. Prove that secret U.S. military aircraft are the source of the sightings. Especially the ones not over U.S. territory.

You done yet, or will I have to pick apart yet another post full of crazy conspiracy theory crap?

Rogue 9 · Post by **Rogue 9** » 2004-03-30 02:58pm

Argh! Stupid lack of edit. Used

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instead of

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>_<

Howedar · Post by **Howedar** » 2004-03-30 04:30pm

Peregrin Toker wrote:Many UFO sightings are caused by secret military aircraft.

I love how you state that as if it's incontrovertible fact, you stupid bitch.

The Kernel · Post by **The Kernel** » 2004-03-30 04:33pm

Howedar wrote:
Peregrin Toker wrote:Many UFO sightings are caused by secret military aircraft.
I love how you state that as if it's incontrovertible fact, you stupid bitch.

Well, that point is actually pretty reasonable. If a person saw an F-117 in 1982, they might very well believe it was a UFO.

Howedar · Post by **Howedar** » 2004-03-30 05:09pm

More likely they'd think it was a black airplane. Cause, you know, it looks like an airplane.

Besides, this ignores the whole problem with the theory, which is that secret aircraft are not flown in the public eye. The F-117 flew only at night when it was black, and pretty much just in the desert around Tonopah.

Rogue 9 · Post by **Rogue 9** » 2004-03-30 05:10pm

And it still only flies missions at night.

The Kernel · Post by **The Kernel** » 2004-03-30 05:23pm

Howedar wrote:More likely they'd think it was a black airplane. Cause, you know, it looks like an airplane.

I don't know about that; the whole flying wing concept isn't exactly new, but how many people before the F-117's public introduction knew about flying wing aircraft designs?

Besides, this ignores the whole problem with the theory, which is that secret aircraft are not flown in the public eye. The F-117 flew only at night when it was black, and pretty much just in the desert around Tonopah.

Interesting point, one which I was not aware of. Are you sure they only flew these things at night? They fly them during the day now; are you certain they didn't perform ANY day trials with them before they were introduced?

Post by **Sea Skimmer** » 2004-03-30 05:27pm

Peregrin Toker wrote: The reported aircraft had delta wings, which the F-117 doesn't.

Moron, the fucking F-117 is a giant delta wing from below.

As for the photo being edited - the photo wasn't produced by the original spotter - it was made by some desperate hoaxer later as a means of corroboration.

Desperate means of corroboration seems to describe your totally unsupported BS pretty well. Show some proof or shut up moron.

You're sure that Nellis AFB isn't home to aircraft which are virtually unknown to the public?

There's no reason to believe that it is and parts of the base that where highly classified, such as the USAF's collection of stolen and captured Soviet SAM's and AAA gear have been opened to the public. Now lets see you actually prove that any hypersonic classified aircraft exist.

Many UFO sightings are caused by secret military aircraft.

Prove it moron or shut up. You are making the claim, you are the one who must support it. We are under no obligation hear, you fucking are.

Post by **Sea Skimmer** » 2004-03-30 05:33pm

The Kernel wrote:
Interesting point, one which I was not aware of. Are you sure they only flew these things at night? They fly them during the day now; are you certain they didn't perform ANY day trials with them before they were introduced?

The F-117 only flew at night or even left the hanger before November 1988, there's no reason to doubt this and no reason for anyone to lie about it. In interviews many of the early pilots talked about how they had a hard time working because there schedules had to be completely reserved whenever they where at the base.

Howedar · Post by **Howedar** » 2004-03-30 07:23pm

The Kernel wrote:Interesting point, one which I was not aware of. Are you sure they only flew these things at night? They fly them during the day now; are you certain they didn't perform ANY day trials with them before they were introduced?

Completely. Pilots made their first flights at night, for crying out loud.