SSTO Waverider Concept

[Coolhand]

**I already wrote this once, then forum told me it wouldn't accept tags over 25 characters and on displaying that message it ate my post, all it says about the limit is that you can only have 5 tags... gah. anychance that limit can be removed or at least labelled clearly? i hate it when a forum eats your post and you have to write it again.**

Anyway, Here we go again...

Propulsion is a PDE pulsejet with combined scram mode (probably very unrealistic) but enables it to get off the ground without rockets, means it airbreathes more than say, an XR2, and doesn't require nearly as large rocket engines, which are used only for insertion and orbital manuvering.

It's a combination of various concepts, and started as a caret wing with a far more substantial wing, but i felt it was over winged by looking at some other concepts so i reduced that, then felt that it wouldn't make it off a runway so gave it a swingwing for extra low speed lift. Only a few hours work so far on concept and modelling, i'm interested in what you all make of it since i'm trying to use some latest, bleeding edge experimental concepts in the design.

 

[Woo482]

Looks Good you just need to add more detail to the model

 

[DanP]

Cool looking model!

PDE maybe?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pulse_detonation_engine

 

[Coolhand]

yeah, thats the engine i said it'd use, but i think thats only good up to a certain speed. my crazy idea is that the engine is multimode and can switch over to scram at highspeed. maybe it could go from pulse jet to rockets at high altitude and speed and it wouldn't need scrams at all.

 

[santy86]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Skylon a nice SSTO project

 

[Urwumpe]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Skylon a nice SSTO project

I think somebody in the old M6 forum was already working on it. If not, I want a mesh! It is a damn cool design.

 

[santy86]

A person created the HOTOL add-on. i don't remember whom, but for sure there is no skylon add-on.

 

[Arrowstar]

Can I also suggest Linear Aerospikes for the rocket engine portion of the propulsion? Since you seem to be using all sorts of different methods, it would be a fun one to develop and model, as well. There are a number of advantages to them versus standard engines.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Linear_aerospike

 

[Coolhand]

Aerospikes are cool, and would fit nicely where the rockets are going. It'll probably get those because they look very hightech. My only problem would be that it sorta misses the point of having an aerospike since this only kicks into rocket mode when it's nearly in space anyway, so it could just have a conventional nozzle designed for near vacuum. Unless it switched to from PDE straight to rocket power at a lower speed and altitude which might not be a bad idea.

 

[GregBurch]

Very nice shape -- it "feels" right for the aerodynamic regime you're talking about.

 

[TSPenguin]

**I already wrote this once, then forum told me it wouldn't accept tags over 25 characters and on displaying that message it ate my post, all it says about the limit is that you can only have 5 tags... gah. anychance that limit can be removed or at least labelled clearly? i hate it when a forum eats your post and you have to write it again.**

With Opera I don't have such problems. Press back and there it is.

Cool concept by the way.

 

[santy86]

The ship's mesh looks nice, just need to add more details and textures.

By the way, you could use aerospike-PDE/aerospike-rocket (also unrealistic and maybe more complex) but you would mix all ideas in this thread.

At lift-off aerospikes are in PDE mode at mach 3 scramjets activate to accellerate faster. when in orbital insertion you will use aerospikes in rocket mode.

This eliminates the need of additional rocket nozzles that you were thinking of

 

[James.Denholm]

I don't know, it looks a bit like Burch's Hyper Wedge.

 

[Coolhand]

Greg, thanks man.

TSpenguin, yeah i used to use firefox which would do that, but i had some problems with it and went back to IE.

Santy, i could buy the concept of a multi-mode PDE and scram, but a linear aerospike that also works as a PDE is pushing believablilty too far imo. It could be an airbreathing aerospike - so it's oxidiser is drawn from the atmosphere but i'd like 2 distinct engines on it.

James, didn't know greg had done one of these, anyone have a link? If they're similar its just because we're both drawing inspiration from the same real life projects and research.

 

[santy86]

Hi coolhand,

Greg used his hyper wedge as a fist stage of the SwiftSS

here is a link: [ame="http://www.orbithangar.com/searchid.php?ID=3371"]SwiftSS Aerospaceplane[/ame]

 

[Coolhand]

Yes it's a link... but to the wrong thing.

 

[TSPenguin]

The link is fine and it is the right thing. Search SwiftSS here for some pics.

 

[Coolhand]

The Swift SS is nothing like this though, i have looked through gregs stuff and there's nothing like this in there.

 

[TSPenguin]

You have to admit it has certain similarities to the HyperWedge from the SwiftSS project. http://www.gregburch.net/SwiftSS/SSS1.html
But that is only from the general idea behind the concept.

 

[Coolhand]

Indeed, they're both coming from the same research, but i'm referencing real world examples, not gregs design. The flat nose is to help it ride its shockwave, see the X-43 for the origins of that feature. It's a bit like comparing any conventional spaceplane design with another... there's just fewer of these flat nose waverider designs out there. the 2 designs are really very different apart from that superficial similarity, mines more of an extrapolation of the X-43 than anything.