Monday, May 19, 2025

Rotating detonation in flight

Venus Aerospace did it, those mad lads: got a rotating-detonation engine to work in flight. Also it was tested in New Mexico, which I hadn't thought was the best political environment for it.

I don't know if they 3D printed this.

They're not looking at space. They're trying to push aircraft, from a runway through our atmo. They think they can reach Mach 6 - which, as they note, is where they can get a ramjet effect. Going much above that is a problem for others.

I think Venus' aim be to shave steps off that smithsonian-to-orbit problem: no need for a booster, from normal flight to Mach 6. The components get simpler (ramjets are already simple) so less prone to failure. It also saves on fuel. This space can be used instead for cargo: they're talking a Mach 4 passenger craft, which they boast would be reusable (they couldn't reuse the others?).

I don't know about it being commercial however. Boom Supersonic still thinks they've got something. But it's illegal: in the 1970s the US banned it, because they couldn't be made quiet, but Boom is supposedly quiet. Bills are pending Federally to allow supersonic if quiet.

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