Talk:Air-augmented rocket

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somebody oughta put a nice article stub for "Ramrocket; Please See "Air Augmented Rocket."

Prometheuspan 00:35, 3 February 2006 (UTC)

Go ahead, it's not hard to make a redirect. To see how to do it, click on a redirect, and then when you get to the target page, click on the link at the top. You can then start to edit it and you'll get the source. That will show you how to do it.

For example go to Space Shuttle. WolfKeeper 04:04, 3 February 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Ducted rocket

I've removed the reference to integral rocket/ramjets and ducted rockets from the "also known as" list at the start of this article.

The integral part of integral rocket/ramjet refers to the fact that the solid-propellant booster is integrated within the ramjet combustion chamber. Otherwise it's just a normal ramjet. This is a more efficient packaging solution than external tandem (e.g. Sea Dart) or wraparound (e.g. Bloodhound) boosters.

A ducted rocket is just a type of solid propellant ramjet. A solid propellant gas generator exhausts a hot fuel-rich gas through a nozzle into the ramcombustor where it burns in the compressed air from the intakes. The gas generator exhaust is fairly low velocity and does not produce enough thrust by itself to operate as a rocket. A ducted rocket produces little or no thrust statically or in a vacuum. A throttleable ducted rocket, sometimes known as a variable flow ducted rocket, is the propulsion system on the European BVRAAM Meteor, which recently began flight tests.

I admit that the nomenclature is somewhat confusing as the air augmented rocket, or ejector ramjet, is effectively a rocket in a duct.

I think that it would be better if the differences between these engines was covered here, it presumably isn't covered elsewhere. So are you saying that integral rocket/ramjets don't choke on the main nozzle at low airspeeds, and hence give negligible thrust? So far as I am concerned this article should talk about all airbreathing jet engines with supersonic combustors, but YMMV.WolfKeeper 19:42, 24 August 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Effectiveness

This entire section needs to be rewritten with references and support. I lack the time presently to complain as thoroughly as I did for downsides, but the section is just as bad. Tirgaya 20:42, 24 February 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Downsides

I removed the phrase, "Therefore ramrockets make relatively poor rockets" because the simple conclusion is unsupported. In fact this whole section may be empirically refuted by Gnom.

The Downsides section also makes several unsupported assertions. Where is the evidence for the notion that the air ducting needed is itself 5 to 10 times the mass of a rocket with similiar I_sp or thrust? Why is it relevant that the air intakes are hard to design? Aren't all rockets? The claim that the "airframe" must be designed around the intake is false prima facie as evidenced by Gnom and GTX. The claim that thrust runs out as the system rises out of the atmosphere ignores the fact that this isn't an entire propulsion system, but rather an optimization of an existing system... namely rockets. Tirgaya 20:42, 24 February 2007 (UTC)