Reply #29

It's purely a MYTH that physicists and engineers said that the sound barrier couldn't be broken.

It has been know for a LONG, LONG time that the crack of a whip is due to the tip going super-sonic. So there can't be any physical laws that are violated by going faster than sound.

There were engineering concerns about whether one could get jet / rocket engines that could produce enough power to compensate for the immense drag caused when one goes super-sonic. The shock-wave that is the "bow wave" of a supersonic aircraft saps lots of energy. Until recently, the only way to go supersonic was to use after-burners on the jet engines. That limited super-sonic flight to a few tens of minutes.

The new F-22 stealth fighter is the first craft that has "super-cruise" and can go super-sonic without the use of after-burners on the engines.

I don't care how efficient it is. It is merely a scheme to "borrow from Peter to pay Paul". Any energy that is converted into electricity comes out of that which could otherwise be used for lighting. You can't "double count" the energy and use a given incident photon for both lighting and electricity; regardless of how efficient you get.

You do understand that, don't you?

PamW