Scramjet - History of Scramjet

In the World War II and afterwards, there was a lotmilitary aircrafts because of the high speed and the
of effort put in research and most of all directedtemperature of the supersonic flight.
towards high speed jets and rocket aircrafts.From 1986 to 1993, in US there have been attempts
Bell X-1 was the first accomplishment, as it reached ato create a reusable space plane but without results.
supersonic flight in 1947. Rapid progress followed. InThe hypersonic flight concept was not well taken and
the 1950's and also the 1960's, many experimentaldropped off.
scramjets were made and then tested in UK andRight now there are different claims on who made
USA. Tests were also made in Australia in 1981,the first scramjet word. And by work it means: the
guided by Prof. Ray Stalker, at T3, ANU.scramjet worked on grown tests and in the wind
Back then the main purpose of the civilian airtunnel, plus a minor flight test. Right now the problem
transportation was to reduce the operating cost andis complicated and many experiments are kept a
not increase the flight speed. The supersonic flightssecret.
needed jet engines that were conventional but usedThere are many institutions involved like the
a lot of fuel. This is why the companies preferred theAmerican Defense Advanced Research Project
supersonic jumbo jet and not the transports. TupolevAgency (DARPA), the Australian Defence Science or
Tu-144 and Concorde were famous and they werethe Technology Organization (DSTO). They have
sustained by the Russian and the Frenchsuccessfully tested a scramjet using rockets to
governments. They had little profit and they receivedboost it. They did the test in Australia. Besides the
subventions from the state.experiment, no scramjet was ever built.
The supersonic capabilities could not be used in