You obviously have know idea what actually is allowed and what isn't allowed under the Geneva Conventions... The conventions that we've agreed to simply outlaw weapons that are specifically targetted to blind someone. If the goal of the weapon is to blow their head off, then that's perfectly fine. If you accidentally blind them while attempting to blow their head off, that's ok also. You just can't deliberatly _intend_ to blind them going into it.
Lower Gs results in less stress on the machinery, and thus becomes less likely to malfunction
BS! lower Gs result in lower stresses in the same sized beams and supports. Don't you think that the designers and builders of the coasters with higher G's probably give a little beefier supports to them? answer: YES! The higher G coasters probably have the same stress levels in the machinery as the lower G ones, possibly even lower stress levels due to higher margins of safety (MS) built into them. The key thing to remember is that the coasters with higher G's are simply built differently than those with lower G's, by definition.
If the G force limit is for the coaster, then it's completely bunk. I can garauntee that I can create a coaster that is less structurally sound at 4G than a differnt coaster is at 7 or 8G. It all has to do with how they are made, not how many Gs they pull. The _only_ reason to have a G limit is the human element.
Way less than one G. In order to have 1G or greater on takeoff you would need to have a Thrust-to-Weight ratio of greater than one. Believe me, no commercial aircraft have anywhere close to that. If I recall correctly, most are closer to.3-1 or so which translates to, at best, a.3G increase during the takeoff run.
No, I can't... for a variety of reasons. And although I doubt that I can convince you otherwise, it is not a myth.
With that being said, it may have taken advantage of certain drives not "honoring" the write protection slider on the disk and may not have been effective on every machine, but on the two machines I tried it on (because I didn't believe it either...) it was able to "override" the copy protection slider on the disk. This was... 7 or 8 years ago or so...
but it's not a real hardware selection read/write
on
Death to the 3.5" Floppy?
·
· Score: 2, Informative
One problem with this. I know for a fact that many drives will support overriding the default "hardware" selection on a 3.5 inch floppy for it's "read-only" atributes. I have had a program in the past that had as one of its specific design criteria that it could overwite _ANY_ disk put into the drive to completely erase any and all information on the disk, a complete wipe with the associated overwriting 20 or so times with random 1's and 0's...
The only problem with the idea of using entirely http based "send me a message systems" is that some people, like myself, would much rather have an actual email address to use instead of having to use 50 different layouts and 50 different configurations and 50 different methods of communicating with someone or a company. Every html based contact system has its own quirks and problems, I'd rather just need to learn my email programs issues instead.
You're full of it and obviously have no idea what you are talking about. Try actually talking to ANYONE that's actually in the industry for more than about 5 minutes and they could list 20 ways in which you are wrong.
As the ONLY example of goverment subsidies you list the $20 million subsidy after 9/11. Ummm, ever think that the industry is a multi BILLION (with a B) dollar industry and the 20 million is a relative drop in the bucket? And that's just in the USA alone...
The FAA has only one enforcement action???? are you nuts? The can revoke operating licenses, they can revoke pilots licenses, they can revoke maintenance abilities. Put simply, they can and have on occasion said, you can't fly inside of our borders, period. Not, we won't give you money, but more simply, you can't fly regardless of how you pay for it. If you carry a passenger for money (which even includes the passenger simply paying for more than a prorated share of the expenses of the flight), they have immense control over what you can and can't do.
When airlines are forced to make changes the gov reimburses them????? hahahahahahahahahaha! I can't even stop laughing over this one. You're in a fantasy world. The government NEVER (well, I guess three may be a few exceptions, but I don't know of any) reimburses the airlines for mandated safety/secutiry changes.
ok, and the last one, that employees are technically classified as gov workers. ummmm, no. They are not in ANY way shape or form classified as government workers. Can I clarify that any?? How about the guy that gives your poodle his monthly trim and wash? yea, well, he's just as much of a government employee as most airline employees. The only even slightly concevable exception to this is now airport security screeners, air traffic controllers, and a few people known as DARs (designated something reviewers). pilots? no. Flght attendants? no. check in people? no.
Why don't you go back to the rock that you crawled out from under and give it a rest. You obviously have absolutely no clue what you are talking about.
ok, first off, fighter technology is evolving much faster tahn bomber technology... But electronically and as well as aerodynamically. Research and modern cimputers have made it possible to build inherently unstable aircraft which can turn much faster than inherently stable ones... hence, can reat faster and better to new threats or the other plane's manuevering.
Second, something called limit load. Aircraft are designed to withstand limit load. For bombers and cargo planes (B52 & C5 for example) they almost NEVER see limit load during actual use. An aircraft may see limit load a half dozen times in their lifetimes. But for fighters, they ALWAYS see limit loads. They may see limit load a half dozen times in a single flight. If you were to build the structure up enough to take these kinds of loads forever, it would weight too much to be maneuverable still... and hence couldn't fight. And yes, I do work in the aerospace industry as a structural engineer.
Well, once upon a time, F14's were purely a air defence aircraft... but the latest rendition has turned them into a ground attack plane as well. And they actually make one HELL OF A fighter bomber. In fact, recently (as in the past few weeks) the F14's have even been guiding most of the guided bombs that the F18's are dropping. In addition, they ahve the range to leave the carriers, go inland to even northern Afgan., drop their bombs on target, and then return home while only refueling once while still out over the ocean. F18's on the other hand have legs that are a little shorter. In generaly, they've been taking off, refueling once... flyinga little farther, refueling again just before getting into bad guy territory, hitting the target, and then refueling twice more on the way back to the carrier... not exactly the best use of resources. I think they have the range to make it to some of the southernmost targets with only 2 refuelings... but not many. And no, the new super hornet that's supposed to replace the F14's in the years to come don't have a range much greater than the current hornets do... 20 years from now, it'd be a lot tougher for us to do this kind of bombing with navy planes. We'd have to rely a hell of a lot more on the B52s and B2s flying roundtrip 28 hours from the US. Once again, not exactly a great use of resources...
> airline in the world (for example) is dependent
> on a navagation system run by the US military
What are you talking about???? until just a few years ago (5) no plane in the sky could "officially" use gps as a positional aid. Admittedly, gps has RECENTLY opened up many additional runways and airports to instrument approaches (when the weather's too bad to land visually) but the majority of approaches in use today still don't use GPS. And the majority of in flight navigation is also NOT based on GPS. I don't know this for fact, but I'd be suprised if even 1 commercial flight out of 10 uses GPS as a primary navigation aid. Beleive me, the FAA and other countries' equivalents has long had a system in place without the use of GPS and it's still going strong today.
Actually, I was thinking of the correct type. a) I'm an aerospace engineer in the industry. b) I skydive. I'm very familiar with both planes and parachutes.
To quote the website that you referrenced: "In a very short amount of time, the aircraft will cease any swinging and stabilize under the now fully-opened canopy at zero forward airspeed."
Kind of hard to glide with ZERO forward airspeed. A modern airliner can glide, from altitude, miles and miles. There was a recent (few months ago) mishap where a plane lost all engines and glided over 60 miles to the nearest airport. At the altitudes (low) that any increase in glide ratio would be usefull, the chute wouldn't have time to deploy and stabilize. Not to mention that turning would be next to impossible in that configuration, so forget about picking a decent place to land, you're going down wherever you happen to be pointing.
No, No, No! An engine falling off of a plane will not make it too unbalanced to fly. And yes, I AM an aerospace engineer working in the aerospace industry.
However, it might cause a momentary loss of control. An engine falling off combined with the loss of power from said engine shortly after takeoff has to be one of the worst case scenarios facing a pilot. Combine that with a possible degredation of hydraulic control (due to fire/explosions) and low altitude, it could be very bad, very quickly.
For a specific example, I remember a case years ago of an airliner losing an engine (as in falling off, not just losing power) somewhere out west. I'm thining it was over Texas, but I'm not sure. It was able to land safely. And for some reason, I'm thinking that was American also...
OK, that works fine until you also consider that there are times when a pilot _NEEDS_ to leave the cockpit. And I'm not even talking about the usual things about needing to use the restroom or food or beverage needs... I'm talking about leaving the cockpit for reasons relating to clying the plane. There are some systems (mechanical) that can't be accessed from the cockpit and have no way of making them accessible form the cockpit. Often times, the manual gear release mechanisms are located in the body of the aircraft for example. Sometimes they need to leave in order to visually inspect something. On longer flights (trans-pacific), you also have issues of crew relief to deal with...
Welding the door shut simply isn't a viable solution.
OK, so let me get this straight, total sales are 31 million. But they are claiming that they lost 150 million in sales due to this program? I've got to be missing something...
No, actually this isn't the single biggest reason for switching from liquid fuel. In fact, most sources list liqued fuel rockets as generally being safer to operate for manned flights due to the ability to stop the rocket's burn mid-flight. The single biggest reason to use solid fuel over liquid is the ratio of available power to weight. Solid rocket fuel simply packs more punch per pound that liquid propellants...
NOT A CHANCE! this thing will be so tied up in regulatory red tape that it would be lucky if it could launch from the US in 10-15 years, much less 2 and ahalf like he's talking about. Hell, it takes the FAA longer than that to even certify an airplane for commercial sale. Not if the get smart and go from some other country... maybe.
OK, I don't pretend to know all of the technicalities behind how my DSL works. But what I do know is that I have fiber until about 100 feet away from my front door. From there it's copper to the house. I know this because a) I saw them put it in and b) I've had two or three sepereate people from the local phone company tell me such. So, while I guess I can't be 100% positive, I'm pretty sure. I believe that I've heard them describe the fiber/copper box as a "mini-slam" but could be wrong, and yes, there is probably one of these little (6 sq ft?) boxes for every ten houses or so...
And even with this copper/wire hybrid, I'm typing this over a dsl link with my dsl modem upstairs in the office. Just a standard dsl modem from alcatel. Nothing fancy. So what it sounds to me is that someone is to lazy/cheap to install the necessary equipment to make it work for you and your situation.
Actually, I am in aerospace, but that has nothing to do with my answer... the human pilot can NOT make the needed changes to correct for the navigational errors introduced. In fact, the SR-71 which flies "only" at Mach 3 or so is alreadyto fast for a human pilot to control effectively and accurately. It has computers that tell the pilot when to turn and how long to turn to end up where they need to be. I remember reading a pilot account once when their computer failed. IT seems that he wanted to try to continue the mission anyway since it was just a training mission ove the US and Pacific ocean. He started his turn somewhere over Arizona or New Mexico (I don't remember the exact location, check out _Sled Driver_ for details) and acidentally ended up over Mexico before he even realized it... needless to say, he didn't continue the mission but instead slowed down and returned home. Admittadely, this turn was supposed to be a gradual, standard rate turn (which usually means 2 minutes for a 360 in general aviation terms... not sure about the SR-71).
OK, I'm sick and tired of people talking about things in which they have NO IDEA!!!!
if you are going to spew forth something as fact, as least check that it's the truth first.
RAMJET - works best above supersonic speeds, had no compresser (at least not a compresser fan that is). Let's shock waves and natural compression of air as it enters the engine do the compression for it. Internally, all flow is _SUB_sonic. After the air passes through the inlet nozzle, the flow is most of the time slowed down to around mach.4 or below.
SCRAMJET - the SC in the name stands for _SUPERSONIC COMBUSTION_ It is much like the RAMJet except that the internal flow is also supersonic. Not as fast as the surrounding flow, but still above the speed of sound. The actual combustion occurs at supersonic speeds. The problem with these is getting all of the burning of the air and fuel done before it is out of the back of the engine. At Mach 1+ the milliseconds that it takes for fuel to burn completely takes up an awfully large distance. That's why generally, these engines are usual not "jet-fuel" for their fuel. Hydrogen has been suggested because it can burn and react so quickly... I don't recall seeing any large scale working prototypes of this engine yet, but I haven't really looked into it in a few years, so I may be mistaken on this one.
Actually, Mach is only one of three measurement commonly used for speed of aircraft. There's Mach, indicated airspeed and actual airspeed, all different. Mach and indicated airspeed are used because that's what the aircraft actually feels. As an aircraft approaches mach 1 (civil airliners cruise at.7-.73 generally) there's something called drag divergence. That's why the civil jets fly at the speed they do, much above that and drag starts to seriously go up exponentially almost. mach varies depending on temperature, not density, but temperature.
Indicated airspeed varies depending on density. For most small aircraft, homebuilts or general aviation aircraft that you and I could fly, this is the most important number as it determines when the aircraft will stall or when the wings will rip off. Mostly used at low speeds when air can generally be considered incompressible. If you go faster where you have to start taking into accoutn compression, then you start dealing more with Mach generally.
And finally actual airspeed which is actually a fixed number no matter where you are, at any location, any altitude, any temperature. But unfortunately, this really doesn't matter to much to the airframe or wings, that's why it's least used, except in planning the actual flight path of the aircraft.
Well, yes and no... yes, the X-15 went faster than MACH 3, but it did so at considerable expense. It had to be carried up to altitude by a B-52. It used a _rocket_ engine, not a jet engine. On the flights where it pushed the speed envolope most, it ended up losing most of it's verticle tail due to heat burning it off.
My understanding on the SR-71 is that its speed is not limited by engine thrust, but rather by heat buildup. If it goes to fast for to long, it would, literally, melt it's wings and control surfaces off, or at least several damage them. As it is, the plane has literally hundreds of parts that have to be replaced every flight do to the heat killing them. It was designed that way.
ahh, no, you're wrong. The speed of sound does not vary with density. The exact formula is a=SQRT(gamma*R*T) where gamma and R are constants for a particular gas. So, the higher you go, the lower the speed of sound is actually... And yes, I am an aerospace engineer.
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You obviously have know idea what actually is allowed and what isn't allowed under the Geneva Conventions
BS! lower Gs result in lower stresses in the same sized beams and supports. Don't you think that the designers and builders of the coasters with higher G's probably give a little beefier supports to them? answer: YES! The higher G coasters probably have the same stress levels in the machinery as the lower G ones, possibly even lower stress levels due to higher margins of safety (MS) built into them. The key thing to remember is that the coasters with higher G's are simply built differently than those with lower G's, by definition.
If the G force limit is for the coaster, then it's completely bunk. I can garauntee that I can create a coaster that is less structurally sound at 4G than a differnt coaster is at 7 or 8G. It all has to do with how they are made, not how many Gs they pull. The _only_ reason to have a G limit is the human element.
Way less than one G. In order to have 1G or greater on takeoff you would need to have a Thrust-to-Weight ratio of greater than one. Believe me, no commercial aircraft have anywhere close to that. If I recall correctly, most are closer to .3-1 or so which translates to, at best, a .3G increase during the takeoff run.
Will
No, I can't ... for a variety of reasons. And although I doubt that I can convince you otherwise, it is not a myth.
...) it was able to "override" the copy protection slider on the disk. This was ... 7 or 8 years ago or so ...
With that being said, it may have taken advantage of certain drives not "honoring" the write protection slider on the disk and may not have been effective on every machine, but on the two machines I tried it on (because I didn't believe it either
One problem with this. I know for a fact that many drives will support overriding the default "hardware" selection on a 3.5 inch floppy for it's "read-only" atributes. I have had a program in the past that had as one of its specific design criteria that it could overwite _ANY_ disk put into the drive to completely erase any and all information on the disk, a complete wipe with the associated overwriting 20 or so times with random 1's and 0's ...
The only problem with the idea of using entirely http based "send me a message systems" is that some people, like myself, would much rather have an actual email address to use instead of having to use 50 different layouts and 50 different configurations and 50 different methods of communicating with someone or a company. Every html based contact system has its own quirks and problems, I'd rather just need to learn my email programs issues instead.
You're full of it and obviously have no idea what you are talking about. Try actually talking to ANYONE that's actually in the industry for more than about 5 minutes and they could list 20 ways in which you are wrong.
...
As the ONLY example of goverment subsidies you list the $20 million subsidy after 9/11. Ummm, ever think that the industry is a multi BILLION (with a B) dollar industry and the 20 million is a relative drop in the bucket? And that's just in the USA alone
The FAA has only one enforcement action???? are you nuts? The can revoke operating licenses, they can revoke pilots licenses, they can revoke maintenance abilities. Put simply, they can and have on occasion said, you can't fly inside of our borders, period. Not, we won't give you money, but more simply, you can't fly regardless of how you pay for it. If you carry a passenger for money (which even includes the passenger simply paying for more than a prorated share of the expenses of the flight), they have immense control over what you can and can't do.
When airlines are forced to make changes the gov reimburses them????? hahahahahahahahahaha! I can't even stop laughing over this one. You're in a fantasy world. The government NEVER (well, I guess three may be a few exceptions, but I don't know of any) reimburses the airlines for mandated safety/secutiry changes.
ok, and the last one, that employees are technically classified as gov workers. ummmm, no. They are not in ANY way shape or form classified as government workers. Can I clarify that any?? How about the guy that gives your poodle his monthly trim and wash? yea, well, he's just as much of a government employee as most airline employees. The only even slightly concevable exception to this is now airport security screeners, air traffic controllers, and a few people known as DARs (designated something reviewers). pilots? no. Flght attendants? no. check in people? no.
Why don't you go back to the rock that you crawled out from under and give it a rest. You obviously have absolutely no clue what you are talking about.
Will
ok, first off, fighter technology is evolving much faster tahn bomber technology... But electronically and as well as aerodynamically. Research and modern cimputers have made it possible to build inherently unstable aircraft which can turn much faster than inherently stable ones
Second, something called limit load. Aircraft are designed to withstand limit load. For bombers and cargo planes (B52 & C5 for example) they almost NEVER see limit load during actual use. An aircraft may see limit load a half dozen times in their lifetimes. But for fighters, they ALWAYS see limit loads. They may see limit load a half dozen times in a single flight. If you were to build the structure up enough to take these kinds of loads forever, it would weight too much to be maneuverable still... and hence couldn't fight. And yes, I do work in the aerospace industry as a structural engineer.
Well, once upon a time, F14's were purely a air defence aircraft
> airline in the world (for example) is dependent
> on a navagation system run by the US military
What are you talking about???? until just a few years ago (5) no plane in the sky could "officially" use gps as a positional aid. Admittedly, gps has RECENTLY opened up many additional runways and airports to instrument approaches (when the weather's too bad to land visually) but the majority of approaches in use today still don't use GPS. And the majority of in flight navigation is also NOT based on GPS. I don't know this for fact, but I'd be suprised if even 1 commercial flight out of 10 uses GPS as a primary navigation aid. Beleive me, the FAA and other countries' equivalents has long had a system in place without the use of GPS and it's still going strong today.
Actually, I was thinking of the correct type. a) I'm an aerospace engineer in the industry. b) I skydive. I'm very familiar with both planes and parachutes.
To quote the website that you referrenced: "In a very short amount of time, the aircraft will cease any swinging and stabilize under the now fully-opened canopy at zero forward airspeed."
Kind of hard to glide with ZERO forward airspeed. A modern airliner can glide, from altitude, miles and miles. There was a recent (few months ago) mishap where a plane lost all engines and glided over 60 miles to the nearest airport. At the altitudes (low) that any increase in glide ratio would be usefull, the chute wouldn't have time to deploy and stabilize. Not to mention that turning would be next to impossible in that configuration, so forget about picking a decent place to land, you're going down wherever you happen to be pointing.
No, No, No! An engine falling off of a plane will not make it too unbalanced to fly. And yes, I AM an aerospace engineer working in the aerospace industry.
...
However, it might cause a momentary loss of control. An engine falling off combined with the loss of power from said engine shortly after takeoff has to be one of the worst case scenarios facing a pilot. Combine that with a possible degredation of hydraulic control (due to fire/explosions) and low altitude, it could be very bad, very quickly.
For a specific example, I remember a case years ago of an airliner losing an engine (as in falling off, not just losing power) somewhere out west. I'm thining it was over Texas, but I'm not sure. It was able to land safely. And for some reason, I'm thinking that was American also
First off, you're nuts. I can gaurantee that ADDING drag in the form of a parachute will not increase the glide distance of a modern airliner.
OK, that works fine until you also consider that there are times when a pilot _NEEDS_ to leave the cockpit. And I'm not even talking about the usual things about needing to use the restroom or food or beverage needs ... I'm talking about leaving the cockpit for reasons relating to clying the plane. There are some systems (mechanical) that can't be accessed from the cockpit and have no way of making them accessible form the cockpit. Often times, the manual gear release mechanisms are located in the body of the aircraft for example. Sometimes they need to leave in order to visually inspect something. On longer flights (trans-pacific), you also have issues of crew relief to deal with...
Welding the door shut simply isn't a viable solution.
OK, so let me get this straight, total sales are 31 million. But they are claiming that they lost 150 million in sales due to this program? I've got to be missing something...
No, actually this isn't the single biggest reason for switching from liquid fuel. In fact, most sources list liqued fuel rockets as generally being safer to operate for manned flights due to the ability to stop the rocket's burn mid-flight. The single biggest reason to use solid fuel over liquid is the ratio of available power to weight. Solid rocket fuel simply packs more punch per pound that liquid propellants...
NOT A CHANCE! this thing will be so tied up in regulatory red tape that it would be lucky if it could launch from the US in 10-15 years, much less 2 and ahalf like he's talking about. Hell, it takes the FAA longer than that to even certify an airplane for commercial sale. Not if the get smart and go from some other country
OK, I don't pretend to know all of the technicalities behind how my DSL works. But what I do know is that I have fiber until about 100 feet away from my front door. From there it's copper to the house. I know this because a) I saw them put it in and b) I've had two or three sepereate people from the local phone company tell me such. So, while I guess I can't be 100% positive, I'm pretty sure. I believe that I've heard them describe the fiber/copper box as a "mini-slam" but could be wrong, and yes, there is probably one of these little (6 sq ft?) boxes for every ten houses or so...
And even with this copper/wire hybrid, I'm typing this over a dsl link with my dsl modem upstairs in the office. Just a standard dsl modem from alcatel. Nothing fancy. So what it sounds to me is that someone is to lazy/cheap to install the necessary equipment to make it work for you and your situation.
Woops, you're right, I should have sade that most cruise in the .8-.83 range, with some a little faster and some a little slower. My mistake.
Actually, I am in aerospace, but that has nothing to do with my answer ... the human pilot can NOT make the needed changes to correct for the navigational errors introduced. In fact, the SR-71 which flies "only" at Mach 3 or so is alreadyto fast for a human pilot to control effectively and accurately. It has computers that tell the pilot when to turn and how long to turn to end up where they need to be. I remember reading a pilot account once when their computer failed. IT seems that he wanted to try to continue the mission anyway since it was just a training mission ove the US and Pacific ocean. He started his turn somewhere over Arizona or New Mexico (I don't remember the exact location, check out _Sled Driver_ for details) and acidentally ended up over Mexico before he even realized it... needless to say, he didn't continue the mission but instead slowed down and returned home. Admittadely, this turn was supposed to be a gradual, standard rate turn (which usually means 2 minutes for a 360 in general aviation terms ... not sure about the SR-71).
OK, I'm sick and tired of people talking about things in which they have NO IDEA!!!!
.4 or below.
if you are going to spew forth something as fact, as least check that it's the truth first.
RAMJET - works best above supersonic speeds, had no compresser (at least not a compresser fan that is). Let's shock waves and natural compression of air as it enters the engine do the compression for it. Internally, all flow is _SUB_sonic. After the air passes through the inlet nozzle, the flow is most of the time slowed down to around mach
SCRAMJET - the SC in the name stands for _SUPERSONIC COMBUSTION_ It is much like the RAMJet except that the internal flow is also supersonic. Not as fast as the surrounding flow, but still above the speed of sound. The actual combustion occurs at supersonic speeds. The problem with these is getting all of the burning of the air and fuel done before it is out of the back of the engine. At Mach 1+ the milliseconds that it takes for fuel to burn completely takes up an awfully large distance. That's why generally, these engines are usual not "jet-fuel" for their fuel. Hydrogen has been suggested because it can burn and react so quickly... I don't recall seeing any large scale working prototypes of this engine yet, but I haven't really looked into it in a few years, so I may be mistaken on this one.
Actually, Mach is only one of three measurement commonly used for speed of aircraft. There's Mach, indicated airspeed and actual airspeed, all different. Mach and indicated airspeed are used because that's what the aircraft actually feels. As an aircraft approaches mach 1 (civil airliners cruise at .7-.73 generally) there's something called drag divergence. That's why the civil jets fly at the speed they do, much above that and drag starts to seriously go up exponentially almost. mach varies depending on temperature, not density, but temperature.
Indicated airspeed varies depending on density. For most small aircraft, homebuilts or general aviation aircraft that you and I could fly, this is the most important number as it determines when the aircraft will stall or when the wings will rip off. Mostly used at low speeds when air can generally be considered incompressible. If you go faster where you have to start taking into accoutn compression, then you start dealing more with Mach generally.
And finally actual airspeed which is actually a fixed number no matter where you are, at any location, any altitude, any temperature. But unfortunately, this really doesn't matter to much to the airframe or wings, that's why it's least used, except in planning the actual flight path of the aircraft.
Clarify anything?
Well, yes and no ... yes, the X-15 went faster than MACH 3, but it did so at considerable expense. It had to be carried up to altitude by a B-52. It used a _rocket_ engine, not a jet engine. On the flights where it pushed the speed envolope most, it ended up losing most of it's verticle tail due to heat burning it off.
My understanding on the SR-71 is that its speed is not limited by engine thrust, but rather by heat buildup. If it goes to fast for to long, it would, literally, melt it's wings and control surfaces off, or at least several damage them. As it is, the plane has literally hundreds of parts that have to be replaced every flight do to the heat killing them. It was designed that way.
ahh, no, you're wrong. The speed of sound does not vary with density. The exact formula is a=SQRT(gamma*R*T) where gamma and R are constants for a particular gas. So, the higher you go, the lower the speed of sound is actually ... And yes, I am an aerospace engineer.