Predators can shoot accurately supersonic, explained…
Was up in Seattle over the holidays, visited the Museum of Flight.
There is a unique Blackbird sitting in there, the M-21. Advertised speed is Mach 3.2, but she will fly faster.
One of the secrets to the output of the engines are the nose cones. At top speed, the engine itself is only responsible for 27% of the thrust, the rest comes from air-effects inside the housing, afterburners, and the forward push on the nose cone.
Wonder what its like looking thru that windsheild at 3500 fps?
Doesnt really explain the predators, but hey its a start.
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So at what speed does a predator stall ….lol…ther it’s back on subject heh..heh…heh
I watched one take off at Beale AFB when I was 11 years old. That is the absolute loudest airplane made.
The fuel wont ignite until they inject a fuel that explodes when it comes in contact with oxygen.
They take off and immediately refuel in flight. The blackbird is flying at very near stall speed, and the refueling jet is flying as fast as it can.
Maybe I shouldve put this thread in off topic. Fun to compare at first though.
Gents; I was once flying off the coast in the LA area. An aircraft requested from the air traffic controler flight level One, Zero, Zero, Zero. That’s one hundred thousand feet to you non-pilot types. Air traffic control obviously thought the request was a mistake and passed “Sure, why not. You can have it..if you can get there.” Moments later I heard the air controller scream “Holy Shit did you see that!”. I don’t think he meant to key the mike but he did. I had my air search radar on and I saw that aircraft scream straight up and off my scope. The aircraft outstripped my bird’s ability to clock its speed. It was my one and only encounter with a Blackbird. I was in absolute awe. AKULA
PM’ed you
Hey Bod this is of the topic, but are yo still needing a flt top piston for cr project.
That almost sounds like an impossibilty. Rocket science. Thats why i’m just a Mason 😆 . nice pics, would have been cool to see in person.
Chad, Synopsis, you are both right.
All I can remember (didnt get a picture of the photoboard explaining the thrust) is the engine is a 9 stage powerplant, and the exhaust end gets so hot it becomes transparent.
The cones move back into the housing 26″ at full speed. Explaining why would take more brains and memory than I have, however the cones have a reverse taper once they get back into the housing. The air expands begin behind the cones, and the air pressure grows by over 18 times.
End result is a lot of force pushing the cones forward, effectively producing more thrust than the engine itself, something like 67% give or take of the entire amount of power made.
Insane engineering.
I believe those cones move as the speeds go supersonic, an open turbine will clog with stalled air and cut the air input to the compression fans beyond…
Many ‘laws’ of aerodynamics get chucked out the proverbial window above mach 1…
Those things leaked fuel on the ground because the body gaps were set at a full speed temps which due to the supersonic air was nearly 1000 degrees. They used titanium since it expands less than other metals, crazy stuff, LA to NYC in about an hour… 😆
your right Chad….I used to have a scram jet for remote control planes..it was started with a bicycle pump…Damn thing was loud too
That is still the coolest plane ever. I remember as a kid my grandmothers house was under a commercial flight path. Back in the day they didnt restrict commercial speeds to under the sound barrier so we got a boom every hour or so. They were at altitude but it was still enough to hear and gently rattle the windows.
Once the Blackbird gets up to it’s uber-high cruising speed, the air is rushing in so fast that the fuel is combusting due to the compression. It’s dieseling, effectively. Or so I seem to recall.
Kinda a rudimentary SCRAM Jet concept. If I recall, this platform paved the way for further exploration into SCRAM Jets. Hell, I could be way off-base, though.
Speaking of base, I live not terribly far from Barksdale Airforce Base, home of a metric ass-load of B-52 bombers. When I was a kid, a loud boom shook the house, and caused a cake my mom had in the oven to fall. She blamed me for kicking the wall and causing it, untill we learned later that night that an SR-71 Blackbird had landed at Barksdale, breaking the sound barrier on it’s way in. Cool stuff.
I noticed years ago out of my Condor that Predator pellets was accurate out to 50 yards, even with the CRACK….
Would love to see a .25 Predator…
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Funny you should ask. At below 500fps muzzle, they slightly keyhole on me and accuracy is quite rough.
They definitely love velocity.