Scramjet - Next Generation Planes

A scramjet (also known as supersonic combustion ramjet) represents a variation of ramjet using supersonic combustion. Just like the ramjet, the scramjet has a constricted tube and the air is compressed using a high speed. There is also a combustion chamber with fuel that gets combusted. Also, the nozzle exhausts the jet leave at a very high speed, much higher than the inlet air.

The commercial engines of aircrafts use the compressor to take the air and squeeze it into the engine and then spray that fuel into the air. After that ignition starts. In this case the great thing is that very few parts are needed for the whole process. There is no need to a high speed turbine like the one used in turbojets. There is a minimum functional speed required. Also, the scramjet needs supersonic airflow to pass through the big engine. There are also much recent models that use booster rockets to get the velocity.

There have also been made some projections on the top speed and that can reach Mach 24.

Right now the USA Air Force has the SR-71 Blackbird, that can reach close to Mach 3.4. Also, the rockets used on the Apollo Program reached Mach 30+.

Also, it is important to know that the scramjets have complexity and weight issues. This is why few suborbital tests with scramjets have been done. This is because no flown scramjet has survived an actual flight test. Many of the needed parameters are still unclear and the research is taking a long time.

This led to many claims from both of the sides working on this. Pioneers like Jim Oberg and Henry Spencer have named orbital scramjets "one of the hardest manners to reach the orbit", or they used the term 'scramjets' to refer to the applications.

Read more about scramjet and next generation supersonic planes, Visit... Scramjet.

Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Sanjay_Kak