Reaction Engines A2
The Reaction Engines Limited LAPCAT Configuration A2 (called the LAPCAT A2) is a design study for a hypersonic speed jet airliner intended to provide, long range, high capacity commercial transportation. The aircraft was designed, as part of the European Union-funded Long-Term Advanced Propulsion Concepts and Technologies (LAPCAT) programme, by the British aerospace engineering firm Reaction Engines Limited, who said it could be developed into a working aircraft within 25 years once there is market demand for it. Development The vehicle is intended to have about range and good subsonic and supersonic speed fuel efficiency, thus avoiding the problems inherent in earlier supersonic aircraft. The top speed is projected to be Mach 5+. It calls for the use of liquid hydrogen as a fuel, which has twice the specific impulse of kerosene, and can be used to cool the vehicle and the air entering the engines via a precooler. Alan Bond, managing director of Reaction Engin ...
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Hypersonic
In aerodynamics, a hypersonic speed is one that exceeds 5 times the speed of sound, often stated as starting at speeds of Mach 5 and above. The precise Mach number at which a craft can be said to be flying at hypersonic speed varies, since individual physical changes in the airflow (like molecular dissociation and ionization) occur at different speeds; these effects collectively become important around Mach 5-10. The hypersonic regime can also be alternatively defined as speeds where specific heat capacity changes with the temperature of the flow as kinetic energy of the moving object is converted into heat. Characteristics of flow While the definition of hypersonic flow can be quite vague and is generally debatable (especially due to the absence of discontinuity between supersonic and hypersonic flows), a hypersonic flow may be characterized by certain physical phenomena that can no longer be analytically discounted as in supersonic flow. The peculiarity in hypersonic flows ...
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