Re: Skylon SSTO

In article <m2psamnicp.fsf@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>,
Jochem Huhmann <joh@xxxxxxx> wrote:
I got as far as "The airflow is drawn into the engine via a 2 shock
axisymmetric intake and is cooled to cryogenic temperatures prior to
compression."

The 2-shock intake is a very orthodox supersonic intake, nothing at all
strange there. Not the easiest thing to build, and it's out of fashion
with the jet-fighter guys because the customers lost interest in Mach 2.5+,
but it's been well-understood technology since the 1950s.

Cooling to cryogenic temperatures definitely qualifies as unusual. :-)
But the jet-engine guys at Rolls-Royce, who can claim to know something
about high-tech engines, thought it was more or less a solved problem for
HOTOL (which Skylon is distantly descended from). So it may be challenging
but it's not ridiculous.

That engine certainly is complicated, and making it work probably wouldn't
be easy, but they've tested small sections of the intake heat exchanger,
and that's the only really fundamental novelty.
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spsystems.net is temporarily off the air; | Henry Spencer
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