Re: ramjet/scramjet: what makes expanded gas to go out in the back not the fron

From: John W. Landrum (jwlandrum_at_aol.computer.retro.com)
Date: 01/19/05 

To: <sci-space-tech@moderators.isc.org>
Date: 19 Jan 2005 11:49:08 GMT

Perhaps we are talking past one another. Have we made clear to our original
poster that a ramjet does not work from a standing start? You can't take off
with
a ramjet conventionally. Before you can turn it on you must already be moving
fast forward. Unless you take off in a hurricane. The aerospike scramjet has
a different geometry. At takeoff the Venture Star is propelled with both fuel
and oxidizer as the most inefficient rocket imaginable, until there is enough
relative wind for the scramjet to begin using air as oxidizer.