Boeing Introduces New Hypersonic Aircraft Design and Concept
Boeing introduced its newest hypersonic aircraft design and concept earlier this week in January 2022. This new hypersonic aircraft design is an evolution of the first design shown in 2018. Boeing explained that this new hypersonic aircraft design and concept can be used for military missions or as an aircraft carrier space launch.
This new hypersonic aircraft design and concept was showcased at the AIAA SciTech Forum and Exposition in San Diego, California. "We want to take advantage of the AIAA opportunity to show our progress in hypersonic technology," said Boeing's statement, quoted from The War Zone page, Sunday (9/1/2022).
Boeing says it has successfully designed, built and flown hypersonic vehicles for the last 60 years. Boeing Research & Technology has developed hypersonic vehicle concepts and technologies to support potential future defense applications. “Over the past few years, we have refined the design concept of hypersonic aircraft.
Developing innovative integration solutions and challenging technologies, such as propulsion, thermal, materials, navigation guidance and control and engine/airframe integration," said Boeing. Separately, Dr Chris Combs, Dee Howard Assistant Professor at the University of Texas at San Antonio (UTSA) and the university's aerospace program coordinator, wrote on Twitter that Boeing engineers had explained the reasoning behind the apparent design differences between the front of the plane and the rear of the wings on either side of the design.
"So I talked to the people who designed this hypersonic aircraft. A design like this is used to optimize drag on both the inner and outer wings simultaneously. Because the position of the intake is also important here. So it makes perfect sense," said Combs in his Tweet.
A prominent difference in Boeing's new hypersonic aircraft concept model is the placement of two separate engines. This is different from the previous hypersonic aircraft design shown at the 2018 AIAA event.
Older hypersonic aircraft design concepts had two engines, but positioned side by side under the fuselage. This new design configuration looks different when compared to North American Aviation's XB-70 Valkyrie supersonic bomber for the US Air Force in the 1960s.
The North American airline joins Rockwell, which was later acquired by Boeing, in proposing a hypersonic aircraft concept four years ago and nicknamed the Valkyrie. Engine placement, and especially the intake tract (air inlet), is critical on hypersonic aircraft platforms.
Usually used ramjet and scramjet engines which are very sensitive to changes in air flow, but the weakness is that they cannot function effectively at low speeds.
Boeing, has been working on a configuration by combining it using an advanced turbine-based engine (TBCC). So a ramjet or scramjet engine is combined with a more traditional jet turbine to provide effective propulsion at lower speeds.
Reliable TBCC engines can be produced on a large scale and at a reasonable cost, providing a key driver for viable hypersonic aircraft designs in the future. Apart from that, this hypersonic aircraft can take off and land on existing runways.
In 2016, former Lockheed Martin CEO Marillyn Hewson said it would cost around $1 billion to produce a hypersonic demonstrator aircraft the size of a fighter jet. Boeing's Valkyrie concept is widely seen as Lockheed Martin's direct response to proposed hypersonic military aircraft.
The aircraft Lockheed Martin built between 2016 and 2017, called the SR-72, is capable of intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance (ISR), and attack missions. There are strong indications of significant progress in the development of advanced scramjet technology since that time. Boeing Research & Technology is known to be involved in at least one commercial hypersonic aircraft program, although its branch is in Australia.
The project he is working on with Hypersonix Launch Systems, also based in Australia, is focused on developing a carrier capable of serving as a flying platform for launching payloads into space. It will certainly be interesting to see how Boeing's latest hypersonic aircraft concept continues to develop as a platform for military and commercial applications.
