DocM Posted December 7, 2011 Share Posted December 7, 2011 Elon Musk just did a short interview with TIME Magazine, and while it has a bit of SpaceX and Tesla talk it also has an unrelated item which could be his next venture: a supersonic electric aircraft The pertinent part starts at 01:57 and runs to about 02:50. Linked PDF is a NASA funded IEEE paper on electric ducted fan jets and an image showing the difference between one and a conventional turbofan engine. Basically, it replaces the turbojet with a superconducting electric motor while keeping the high-bypass fan that provides much of a turbofans thrust. Not that Musk would necessarily copy this for a supersonic aircraft, but it shows where the general thinking is heading. http://ewh.ieee.org/...ongoC_2AP01.pdf Manuscript received August 26, 2008.This research supported by the NASA Fundamental Aeronautics Program and the Department of Defense Research and Engineering (DDR&E) division under the URETI on Aeropropulsion and Power. Support also received from Florida State University?s Center for Advanced Power Systems (CAPS) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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