Hyperwarp
Captain
True. It has to be Mach 5 of greater. Maybe a typo by Hui Tong.
Chinese UAV/UCAV development
- Thread starter AssassinsMace
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True. It has to be Mach 5 of greater. Maybe a typo by Hui Tong.
Skywatcher
Captain
Well, since China already has a working scramjet engine, the next step would be to combine this combined cycle turbo/ramjet engine with the former.
China probably has a "working" scramjet like the US has a "working" scramjet, which is to say, not really.
Because the test vehicle is powered by a ramjet rather than a scramjet, it's speed can't really go hypersonic which is Mach 5 and up. It is extremely unlikely that Chinese scramjet development is way ahead of its American counterpart, based on the publication of research papers.
TBH, i think that hypersonic flight is just a tech pipe dream. They have been saying that they will build a hypersonic plane in the "future" for many years now. I remember in the early 90´s, reading magazines about how NASP would be the future of aerospace or something like that. Guess what, a quarter of century later, hypersonic research has very little to show for it.
Skywatcher
Captain
Looking at the plans for the hybrid spaceplane to fly by 2030, and that China flew a successful scramjet test bed back in the 2013-2014 timeframe, working scramjet engines for China by the early 2020s isn't out of the question.
I doubt anyone here would disagree with this possibility, but you did say earlier that China already has a working scramjet engine, a statement which no country can currently lay claim to.
Skywatcher
Captain
Working in the sense that that the proof of concept can fly more or less according to the expected parameters. I suppose you could make it a working hypersonic cruise missile f you had the appetite for risk as the Nazis did when they fielded jet fighters.
AssassinsMace
Lieutenant General
I imagine since this was a returnable vehicle and they're early in development, it didn't fly at top designed speed.
I'm not sure what you mean here, but it is extremely unlikely that either the Chinese or the US scramjet currently being tested can be put into a "working" hypersonic cruise missile as they are now.
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