Word: mache
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Dates: during 1940-1949
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...achieve an airplane that will have range and load-carrying ability above Mach i is an extremely difficult problem. Such a plane must be several planes in one. It must take off and land at a practical speed and fly at first below Mach i. It must pass through the dangerous transonic band without being thrown out of control or damaged by buffeting. Then it must deal with the new air behavior and enormous drag encountered above Mach...
There is no known design that will do all these things and still be a useful airplane. Wings that are efficient below Mach i do not serve above it. The behavior of an airframe in the transonic region is still a frightening unknown. But designers are working hard and hopefully. They are sure that by the time they have the proper airframe, they will have engines with plenty of power for the job. Engine men predict confidently that turbojet engines will work efficiently at least as high as Mach 1.5 (1,145 m.p.h...
...National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics. In three great laboratories (Langley Field, Va., Cleveland, and Ames, Calif.) the earnest, enthusiastic scientists of the NACA are digging out deep-hidden facts about high-speed flight. They put experimental wingshapes in big & little wind tunnels, and test their behavior far above Mach i. They test engines and engine components in wind tunnels too, to see how they behave at great speed, low pressure, low temperature. They devise new, more powerful fuels and high-temperature alloys...
...some speeds, thinks the NACA, the most efficient airplane may be shaped like an arrowhead. For others, it may have short, broad "stub" wings. They do not stop at "moderate" speeds such as Mach 1.5, but think boldly about speeds two or three times as fast. Obstacles do not discourage them. At Mach 4, they calculate, air friction will heat the leading edge (perhaps the whole body) of an airplane to about 1,200° F. This is red hot, and above the softening point of ordinary structural metals. "But," say the NACA men, "wings can be cooled artificially...
...Hungry Speed Animal. Above Mach i, thinks the NACA, another and stranger type of jet engine begins to come into the picture. This is the "ram-jet," which used to be called the "flying stovepipe" before its proper design was found to be enormously difficult. The ramjet does look simple. It is a hollow cylinder open at both ends and subtly shaped inside. When it is moving rapidly, the air coming in the nose is compressed as if by the compressor of the turbojet. Fuel is burned near the point of highest compression. The energy added to the compressed...