6 ms·

I wonder if we will ever see more use of rockets in aircraft design? With improvements in manufacturing (like 3d printed parts), simulation, cleaner fuels and

• raverbashing 11y ago
  A rocket is a fundamentally different technology than a turbine engine (some jets don't even have a turbine, like a Ramjet) Choosing a rocket instead of a jet engine relies on a lot of factors (environment, efficiency, speed, etc)
• lmm 11y ago
  What possibilities? Carrying your own oxidiser is always going to be wasteful when there's a plentiful supply of oxygen around already. If anything the opposite technology is more interesting - a space launch vehicle using air-breathing engines (i.e. SABRE). Where aircraft have used rockets it's been similar to use of afterburners - for emergency short-term extra thrust (e.g. JATO).
• tim333 11y ago
  I guess there are some hybrids coming along like the Virgin SpaceShipTwo that fires a rocket at high altitude to get 112km up. Also hybrid missiles with rocket and ramjet that have 3x the range are on their way: http://www.bayern-chemie.com/ramjet.htm http://www.bayern-chemie.com/ramjet.htm
• Gibbon1 11y ago
  Unless I misremember, thrust is proportional to exhaust velocity. Energy is proportional to the square of the velocity. The big advantage of air breathing engines is the ability to use air as the reaction mass. IE, take a huge amount of air, and accelerate it a small amount to produce thrust. Which is why propeller driven aircraft are still 'a thing' and you see turbofan engines with ever higher bypass ratio's. (modern designs are 10:1, 10kg of air flow through the fan fro every 1kg of air through the engine)