Originally posted by intelgurl
The US Navy:
In an unclassified document dealing with the Long Range Strike Aircraft R&D ongoing at the China Lake facility, a program dubbed the “RATTLRS” or
“Rattler” is mentioned. Among other things the “RATTLRS” will be “a turbine propulsion only, air vehicle system” … with the “ability to accelerate at
0.25 g or greater through the transonic flight region”… and with the “ability to cruise at a minimum of Mach 3.0”.
(USN Document title: Revolutionary Approach To Time-critical Long Range Strike (RATTLRS) Flight Demonstration Project (FDP) 05/15/2003)
Where in the world did you stumble across that document? And here's more RATTLRS info:
www.globalsecurity.org...
Frankly, I'm a bit surprised to see so much on-line about it. The project has only been around for a relatively short period of time. Anyway, the
acronym stands for "Revolutionary Approach To Time Critical Long Range Strike." The purpose of the project is to demonstrate that it's possible to
fly a turbojet engine faster than Mach 3, which has traditioanlly been the highest such engines can go. Above that speed, the temperatures get so
high that key components of the engine (like the turbine) fail. It's hoped that new technology will allow the engine to break that limit and perhaps
reach as high as Mach 5.
The Navy is involved because they're looking for a high speed engine that could be used in a cruise missile. NASA is interested because such an
engine could be used in the first stage of a reusable launch vehicle and power the craft from takeoff until traveling fast enough that a scramjet
could be started. I suppose the Air Force could be looking for a potential powerplant for a supersonic bomber, but they seem to be more interested in
missile applications.
In any event, RATTLRS is essentially in competition for money with a program called HyFly. The goal of HyFly is to develop a dual combustion ramjet
engine that can go up to Mach 6 or so. I'm not sure which project will survive, if any.