I ran across this article talking about technology being developed to attempt to take subs at a supersonic speed.
Engadget: Supersonic subs look to cross the Pacific in under two hours
This sounds really cool and all, but what happens when you hit a blue whale at supersonic speeds? Airplanes have enough to worry about with birds. Thankfully, they probably mostly only have to worry about take off and landing. When they hit their top speeds up in the air, they are probably flying above the range of birds. I am sure that pilots are very glad that ostriches don’t fly!
I am guessing that we can’t say the same thing about subs and whales. Would a whale be able to move out of the way of an object moving that fast? Would a sub be able to detect a whale in its path soon enough to maneuver around it?
1 Comment
Ирина · April 7, 2016 at 5:53 pm
Another problem was that the wide range of speeds over which an SST operates makes it difficult to improve engines. While subsonic engines had made great strides in increased efficiency through the 1960s with the introduction of the turbofan engine with ever-increasing bypass ratios , the fan concept is difficult to use at supersonic speeds where the “proper” bypass is about 0.45,