Aurora Aircraft Research Project, page 5

this was posted by murcielago

www.abovetopsecret.com...



"Scaled Composites will fly first ever Pulse Detonation Engine!

Summer 2004 Scaled Composites (the creator of SpaceShip One) will for the first time ever attempt to have a aircraft propelled by a PDE Engine. Although since it's the first flight ever unfortunetly they are only going to go around 200 mph.

They have allready done a 20 hour long endurence test and incorporated the engine on to a Scaled Composite designed aircraft."
(thats what he said)

here is a pic he gave



so the PDWE is developing somewhat.

www.innssi.com...


if you scroll to the patch it talks about borealis as in aurora borealis so maybe aurora was just PDWE research and they changed the name to borealis.

www.popularmechanics.com...

[edit on 7/9/2004 by machinegunjordan]

hmmm look what i found



more where that came from. there is a quicktime vide but hell ill post a link to the site.

www.desertsecrets.com...

the pic looks a little like an su27 shugo why dont you do one of them IR scans.

www.desertsecrets.com...

is one of these aurora?

[edit on 7/11/2004 by machinegunjordan]

Pulse Detonation

First off here, I'm going to put up ATS's Link and then some additional links and some info

This computational study examines transient, reactive compressible flow phenomena associated with the pulse detonation engine or PDE. The PDE is an intermittent combustion engine that relies on unsteady detonation wave propagation for combustion and compression elements of the propulsive cycle.



The present computations focus on high order numerical simulations of the generic PDE configuration with simplified and complex reaction kinetics, so that estimates of engine performance may be made. Both one- and two-dimensional simulations of the high speed reactive flow phenomena are performed and compared to determine the applicability of 1D simulations for performance characterization. Characteristic engine performance parameters, in addition to engine noise estimates within and external to the detonation tube, are being explored.

More on the above here

At first glance, the engine bolted to the test stand looks like an unlikely candidate to lead an aerospace revolution. Its size is unimpressive: At about four feet long, it's dwarfed by the machinery that feeds it air and fuel, machinery that fills a house-size structure at the China Lake Naval Air Warfare Center in California. And its appearance is unremarkable: This machine has none of the grace of the high-bypass turbofans that power modern jetliners, with wide, sweeping inlets and delicate blades. From the outside, it's simply a collection of metal tubes, one large cylinder feeding into five smaller ones terminated by convex, barnacle-shaped nozzles.

But Gary Lidstone and Tom Bussing have bet that this little aircraft engine—the most advanced expression yet of a revolutionary concept called pulse detonation—could absolutely bury all those that have come before it. Lidstone is the manager of propulsion programs for Pratt & Whitney's Seattle Aerosciences Center, and Bussing is his boss and the creative force behind the device's design. Here at China Lake, standing in the desert heat, the two survey their handiwork like proud papas, explaining how it has taken years to show that the concept behind this engine can open up an entirely new world of jet propulsion. "There's a big payoff," Lidstone says. "It's a paradigm shift that could make other things obsolete."

More on the above

Obviously the people who say PDWE's don't exist or can't work or this and that and the other thing, should read this again, because it does exist, we just don't have a "known" plane to have these engines applied.

That would do it for PDWE's for now, since I'm going through just my favorites list... we'll move on to Scramjets now...

Scramjets/Ramjets

Our friendly little X-43A is equipped with these, looking back also I believe the X-33 and X-30 both had these engines, ORIGINALLY.

www.tc.cornell.edu...

More on the above link
Scramjets, which obtain their oxygen from the atmosphere, are one possible solution to the fuel vs. payload problem. Completed, the X-43 would be the first craft to use such an engine. A working scramjet engine would enable an RLV to attain high speeds while still in the atmosphere, using the atmosphere's oxygen for the reaction. Current launch vehicle engines require the vehicle to carry all of its own oxygen, so a scramjet engine would enable a huge reduction in fuel mass.

Both ramjets and scramjets operate on the same basic principle as a jet. As the plane flies, air flows through the engine and is compressed. Fuel is added to the compressed air and the mixture is ignited. The expanding gases are shaped and directed by the engine's nozzle and propel the plane forward. A jet engine, however, uses fans to compress the air. Ramjets and scramjets rely on the forward motion of the vehicle alone. Ramjets and scramjets can produce no static thrust; the vehicle must already be moving fast enough to compress the air before these engines can operate.

Also the Tu-2000, and the HyperSoar have these, and besides those... the MiG-2000 and the AVATAR, all spacecraft, all operating Scramjet/Ramjet types

www.geocities.com...

In comparison to turbojets, they have no moving parts.
They find use only in guided air launched missiles. The aeroplane firing them must be flying at supersonic speeds.
Ramjets operate by subsonic combustion of fuel in a stream of air compressed by the forward speed of the aircraft itself, as opposed to conventional turbojet engines, in which the compressor section (the fan blades) compresses the air.



More on the above

[edit on 28-7-2004 by Shugo]

well the base was wrong IMO but i got a possible picture here goes.

looks more like a black manta.

I know this is a model but it is supposedly based on a secret project. It looks a lot like the SR75(BS IMO) penetrator or the Super Valkyrie/brilliant Buzzard.
model

this thread looks like it could be of some relation.
link

Back in the 1980's there were rumors of a Top Secret Stealth Project known as the Covert Survivable In-weather Reconnassance and Strike (CSIRS)! While I know very little about this plane, I know it was supposed to be a stealth plane that was design Primarly for all weather Reconnassance Missions, with a secondary precision strike mission. I though that it had something to do with the F-117, but I still found a refrence to it in 1994 after the F-117 was Declassified. The Refrence said the program might have used the code name: SPECTER. Also, The F-117 does not have a Reconnassance capabilty that I'm aware of. Does anyone know what this is? Does Lockheed (or someone else) have a stealth plane that's more secret then the F-117 with a simular but Covert mission?

this looks like it helps explain all the F-19 stuff that was being talked about when the project started.







[edit on 30-8-2004 by phantompatriot]

PDWE im currently researching PDWe's

posted by simongray

A couple interesting patents among many others:

United States Patent 5,937,635
August 17, 1999

Pulse Detonation Igniter For Pulse Detonation Chambers


United States Patent 6,439,503
August 27, 2002

Pulse Detonation Cluster Engine

i havent had time to get to the patent place myself ill probably be there around feburary or march.

Since the last time a Pulse Detonation Engine delta-winged supersonic aircraft was observed heading to California across land was in December 1999, perhaps the propulsion system has fallen out of favor.

It could be that this propulsion won't be brought back until manned space travel beyond low Earth orbit returns to the space program. An engineer at an air show in Arizona, who works at Edwards AFB for a defense contractor explained to me that PDE was not very efficient for use on aircraft.

link nothing new here but oh well ill post it.







[edit on 30-8-2004 by phantompatriot]

In the course of conducting the Groom Lake Research project, my team has found some info on the Aurora. Most of what we found suggests that the Aurora is in fact one of the major projects that is based out at Area 51/Groom Lake. Along the Way FredT found some documents about the US Air Force/CIA struggle for control of the airborne reconnassance Program. I'm poviding these links to you all in the hope that they will help you solve the puzzle of who owns the Aurora.

www.gwu.edu...
www.gwu.edu...
www.gwu.edu...

Although the Groom Lake Project is my current Priority, I would like to share relivent Data with your team (which I'm Still Listed as a member of). Hope this helps!

Tim
ATS Director of Counter-Ignorance

well thanks to intelearthling we now know that the PDWE was attempted to be used on the F15 and SR71.

Three advanced aeronautical concepts were selected by NASA for its Revolutionary Concepts (REVCON) project, which encourages the development of ideas that could lead to revolutionary experimental planes. The selected concepts are AeroCraft, a piloted, partially buoyant airship; the Blended Wing Body, a powered, remote-piloted flying wing; and the Pulse Detonation Engine, a design geared toward lower maintenance and operating costs.

How The PDE Works


The article is missing one of the good pictures. here is the article.

PDWE use

EDIT: These Tests were scheduled for 2002. But we still have not seen the results.




[edit on 29-8-2004 by phantompatriot]

[edit on 30-8-2004 by phantompatriot]

OK, I've managed to get a site up with the data that we have at our fingertips. With thanks to theshadowknows.

napia.shadowscorner.com...

Contained in the link which is posted, is the X-30 Thread which I had posted before, all the information from that thread is there. I'm working on getting the spotting log up and running in there so the timeline will be listed on here as well. Let me quote a few things in here:

Originally posted on the X-30 NASP Thread
Now the specifications I've managed to scrape up are as follows:

Speed: Roughly Mach 23 or 17,549 MPH (sorry don't do km/h)
Altitude: out of atmosphere 200,000+ feet
Engine type: Scram Jet or Pulse Detonation Wave Engines
Main Mission: Reconnasaince
Armament: None

Aurora XST side:

Adding a link first for an error made in a previous post: www.fas.org...
quote:

specifications found on BlackVault
Speed: Maximum operational speeds are reported to be in the range of Mach 5-8.
Ceiling: May have an operational altitude of 150,000 feet (28.4 miles) or higher.
Engine type: Scram jet or Pulse Detonation Wave Engines
Armament: Possibly Phoenix Missiles
Main Mission: Reconnasaince



All together specifications
Speed: Roughly Mach 15 or 11,445 MPH
Ceiling: 185,000+ feet
Engine type: Scram jet or Pulse Detonation Wave Engines
Armament: Possibly Phoenix Missiles
Main Mission: Reconnasaince

Average the two:
Speed: 14,497 MPH or Mach 19
Ceiling: Out of Atmosphere
Engines: Scram/Ramjets or PDWE's
Armament: Probably Phoenix Missiles

Most Likely to be a recon/interceptor.

Originally posted on NAPIA
XR-7 Thunderdart
The XR-7 Thunderdart, lately a non-thought-of plane since the recent sightings of Aurora, has a believed though of Mach 25 capability... a fighter version of Aurora so-to-speak is said to be capable of carrying Phoenix Air-to-Air Missiles. Very few reports are received on the Thunderdart due to this not much is known on this “Black Project”. However, existence of the fighter has been proved due to a display of the sequence of the fighter displayed in the USAF intelligence.

Area 51 Information

Type: single-seat air combat fighter and reconnaissance fighter

Powerplant: Pulse Detonation Wave Engines; uses LO3 and LH3 type fuel (Liquid Oxygen and Liquid Hydrogen)

Performance: around 10,290 MPH at stratosphere, 15,349 MPH at sea level; service ceiling 30,000 feet above outer atmosphere; serving range about 40,000 miles

Weight: N/A

Dimensions: N/A

Armaments: 24 Phoenix AAMs (Air-to-Air Missiles); one Mk Bm 28 free-fall bomb

There's a little bit of information, we still have to get some of the specs from the other computer. I'll put a heads up here when I get it there.

Aurora Sighting Timeline (Aurora Research Project Sum up)

This section of the ARP is complete. Here is the link to the url for preference.

All,
I'm new to the site and this project, but I think I can help you out.

First, I saw the speculation about Wallops Island as an East Coast possibility for the Aurora. That is what compelled me to join this site and this project in particular.

Wallops Island is a barrier island south of Chincoteague Island on the Eastern Shore of Virginia. The Wallops Island NASA Flight Facility is a NASA facility that is composed of two parts- the "Main Base" which is on the coast adjacent to Chincoteague, and Wallops Island itself.

Wallops Island was originally the Chincoteague Naval Air Station. The Air Station closed down after WWII and the facility sat vacant for a while until NASA moved in. The airstrip at Wallops is extremely long and is on the Main Base. It's designated as an emergency landing site for the space shuttle, though none have ever landed there. (Interestingly, there is talk about extending the runway into the wetlands to make Wallops the primary landing site for the shuttle. It would be much cheaper to transport the shuttle from Wallops to Canaveral than it is to transport it from Edwards to Canaveral. The downside is the environmental impact to the wetlands, and so far that has stimied any attempts to extend the runway.)

NOAA also has a facility next to the Main Base, across the street from the NASA visitor's center.

The US Navy has a testing, training, and engineering facility on Wallops Island proper. The land this site is on is leased from NASA. See www.scsc.navy.mil... for more information about the Navy at Wallops. There is nothing special about the Navy activities at Wallops. It's the only Naval shore site on the East Coast that can radiate live sensors and as such does a lot of operational and pre-deployment operability testing, hence the 'Battlegroup in the Sand' mentioned on the website. The highest level of work that goes on there is only classified SECRET. All the good stuff is done at other sites.

While the runway at Wallops is certainly long enough to handle aircraft like the Aurora, there are only two hangers at Wallops. One is old and decrepit and the other is normally left open and used for "open house displays" more than anything. Normally aircraft are left parked at the end of the tarmac.

I can say with 99% certainty that the Aurora, or whatever this aircraft is called, has never been at Wallops Island. How do I know this? I've worked there as a defense contractor for the Navy for seven years. I live very close to the base. The best aircraft sites to be seen here are the occasional fighters that do tracking exercises with the Navy facility or the occasional F/A-18 SuperHornet test flight from PAX River across the bay in Southern Maryland. I've loved aircraft my entire life and would love for it to be true that the Aurora frequents these skies, but alas it's just not true.

I think I have an explanation for all the Va Beach sightings as well. Langley Air Force Base and especially the Norfolk Naval Air Station have several air shows each year. The F-117 and B-2 are normally at these air shows. When I was in the Navy in the mid to late 90's I lived near Langley and got pictures of an F-117 flying around my house as it was waiting to land a few days before the airshow. I believe the B-2 came and left during the night. I have some pictures of the B-2 on the ground at the airshow. At the time it was kept about 100-200 feet from the public and taped off so you couldn't get near it, but it was out on display nonetheless.

Another possibility for the sightings is this. The X-43 NASA scramjet aircraft which recently broke the air speed record was built at NASA's Langley facility, which is adjacent to the Langley Air Force Base, which is very close to Virginia Beach.

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