Aeroengineers hope to develop an uncrewed air vehicle that could deliver payloads at very high speed.
Aeroengineers are to investigate the potential of hypersonic technologies for use by British armed forces.
The team behind the venture includes Rolls-Royce, the RAF, the defence research agency DSTL and the Oxfordshire company Reaction Engines.Could China’s hypersonic missile spark a new arms race? Air Vice-Marshal Linc Taylor, the RAF's Chief of Staff Air Capability, won't discuss the applications for such a system, but says the UK has some novel technologies that could allow it do things differently to those seen elsewhere in the world, and at much lower cost.
Essentially, this will see pre-cooler heat-exchangers put on the front of a jet engine to allow it to achieve velocities in excess of Mach 5 . "That's what our cooling technology allows. It takes that heat threat away and drops the temperature from 1,000 degrees, or above, to ambient in less than a blink of an eye."
"There are many challenges in producing this vehicle. One is enabling the engine to perform efficiently at those high speeds, not just survive them," said Ed Gower, who leads the HVX programme at Reaction Engines.
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