Interesting Aerospace Plane news


Message posted by Sundog on November 16, 2004 at 2:31:24 PST:

Hi everyone,
While doing some research on the McDonnell-Douglas GRM-29A (Global Range Mach 29 SSTO aerospace plane that took off like a Harrier), which you can see is the vehicle at the beginning of this issue of Aerospace Projects Review
http://www.up-ship.com/apr/images/v5n2all.jpg

I ran across this article by ANSER
http://www.nsschapters.org/ny/longisland/articles/ANSER.pdf
That article, also the link to this message, describes various Aerospace Plane Designs and their technologies that were built and tested. Specifically, it states the following

"The Boeing Have region test article was successfully designed, built and tested. Some buckling of a lower surface skin panel occurred during reentry testing. Close inspection showed the test article was not built to specifications. The test article contained over 95% of the parts required for the entire vehicle and weighted less then predicted. As of two years ago the test article was still in storage at the Boeing Kent facility."

Does this mean Boeing has built and tested a full scale aerospace plane? I am just wondering, because I keep thinking back to the reports from the mid 90's where people near Edwards heard vehicles taking off that sounded like the Sky Ripping apart. To me, that could be a VTOL SSTO vehicle like the GRM-29A, however, I would think any kind of rocket propelled vehicle would brighten up the sky alot and I have never seen any reported from people who heard those vehicles and were outside or noticed any "bright" light at the same time.

Then again could this be the vehicle supposedly launched from the "Brilliant Buzzard" mother ship?

At the least, I hope you guys find the article and the report informative. BTW, I really like the stealthy aerospace plane design shown at the title page of the report. Of course, I realzie faceted designs also have advantages at high mach numbers, but it does look pretty cool. Sort of like a full scale stealthy X-43.

Attached link: http://www.nsschapters.org/ny/longisland/articles/ANSER.pdf

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