Stability is a really tough design problem for a hypersonic aircraft within the Earth's atmosphere, a vehicle traveling four to five times the speed of a bullet.
A bullet inherently is stable partly because it spins.
Is there a way to design a hypersonic aircraft that also spins? Sure, we can do that, if the vehicle is unmanned.
We might have trouble if it spins too fast however due to the electronics, which are already going to take a beating considering the G forces and inertia, not to mention any high-speed turns.
However, if we're going to put people inside of this vehicle send it halfway around the world in one hour perhaps for a Special Force's mission, then we need to think about stability as we cannot afford to lose the craft along with the people inside.
Okay so, what if the fuselage was spinning, but the crew cabin remained in a neutral position using a special Gyro system.
We could design a system to do this especially if that were in a spherical ball and the center of the Gyro.
The outside casing or fuselage would be spinning, along with perhaps for hypersonic motors rotating around the cabin compartment.
This would create an incredible amount of stability, and it would essentially go back to the drawing board from the currently wedge shaped hypersonic craft we are now using.
That doesn't mean we don't need to keep learning about the ignition firing sequences and systems within these hypersonic craft, or continue our work with other aerodynamic designs, it's just that it seems to me that we are dealing with something we've never actually dealt with yet, and although we have some knowledge in this arena, we keep bumping into more and more challenges the faster we go.
Should we go back to the drawing board on this project? Perhaps the answer's no, however maybe we should be looking at some alternatives and parallel projects using various new designs.
After all, these are all high risk projects with big payoffs once we get it right, and we must.
It makes sense to start building prototypes of fuselage spinning hypersonic craft to keep these vehicles from flying sideways and coming apart, tumbling to destruction - that's just not an option.
Failure is not an option once we start putting people in these devices, whether they be test pilots today, or important passengers tomorrow.
Indeed it is my hope that you will please consider all this and think on it.
A bullet inherently is stable partly because it spins.
Is there a way to design a hypersonic aircraft that also spins? Sure, we can do that, if the vehicle is unmanned.
We might have trouble if it spins too fast however due to the electronics, which are already going to take a beating considering the G forces and inertia, not to mention any high-speed turns.
However, if we're going to put people inside of this vehicle send it halfway around the world in one hour perhaps for a Special Force's mission, then we need to think about stability as we cannot afford to lose the craft along with the people inside.
Okay so, what if the fuselage was spinning, but the crew cabin remained in a neutral position using a special Gyro system.
We could design a system to do this especially if that were in a spherical ball and the center of the Gyro.
The outside casing or fuselage would be spinning, along with perhaps for hypersonic motors rotating around the cabin compartment.
This would create an incredible amount of stability, and it would essentially go back to the drawing board from the currently wedge shaped hypersonic craft we are now using.
That doesn't mean we don't need to keep learning about the ignition firing sequences and systems within these hypersonic craft, or continue our work with other aerodynamic designs, it's just that it seems to me that we are dealing with something we've never actually dealt with yet, and although we have some knowledge in this arena, we keep bumping into more and more challenges the faster we go.
Should we go back to the drawing board on this project? Perhaps the answer's no, however maybe we should be looking at some alternatives and parallel projects using various new designs.
After all, these are all high risk projects with big payoffs once we get it right, and we must.
It makes sense to start building prototypes of fuselage spinning hypersonic craft to keep these vehicles from flying sideways and coming apart, tumbling to destruction - that's just not an option.
Failure is not an option once we start putting people in these devices, whether they be test pilots today, or important passengers tomorrow.
Indeed it is my hope that you will please consider all this and think on it.