Slashdot Mirror
Brits To Crash Test a Scramjet
hywel_ap_ieuan writes "The BBC is reporting that a the "Hyshot consortium" will be testing a scramjet called Hyshot III in Australia on Friday. The fun part: "If everything goes to plan, the experiment will begin at a height of 35 km. As the engine continues its downward path the fuel in the scramjet is expected to automatically ignite. The scientists will then have just six seconds to monitor its performance before the £1m engine eventually crashes into the ground.""
a plane flight to tokyo won't put you in danger of deep vein thrombosis.
Sure blame the plane flight for DVTs. I mean, forget about the fact you weight 300 lbs (around the same as your cholesterol level), smoke, take birth control pills and are diabetic. It's the plane trip that caused it...
Seven puppies were harmed during the making of this post.
To be fair - the Comet was revolutionary in many ways - especially being the first commercial jet airliner. The metal fatigue which caused it to crash was not known about until the crashes. First mover disadvantage. Because the British investigated the crashes so thoroughly, subsequent airliners could ensure they weren't prone to the issue. A great shame that DeHavilland did all the work and a bunch of people died for Boeing to benefit.
I'd have thought that getting as much data as humanly possible would be worth almost any additional effort.
Ah....This ending pretty much explains the whole comment. You must be a physicist....certainly NOT an engineer. There is always diminishing returns on investment. You must pick a price point evaluate what you will get out of any test. More data is almost always better, but somebody has to pay out in the real (non-university) world.
Other errors:
There are solid state data recorders specifically made for high speed impacts. On the order of 100,000 G's. Place one in the back behind something heavy/solid and you shouldn't have any problem.
Wireless can hit 10,000,000 bits/second with one channel. Throw a couple of S-band channels and you have a stout communication line to the ground. Plus the hardware (Rx stations) is already in place at most ranges.
I assume they are doing the burn on the way down because they couldn't afford a rocket big enough to accelerate up to M=7.6 in a dense atmosphere. Plus they don't have to deal with all the heating issues while they are accelerating. Take a nice gentle ride at speeds up to M=3 or 4 and then use gravity to assist you up to the desired speed for the test. As an ENGINEER, I like their simple, low-cost solution to their test.
Religion and science are both 90% crap..but that doesn't negate the other 10%.