Aerospike engines

[warshipadmin]

First flight test

https://newatlas.com/aircraft/worlds-fi ... ight-test/

Great fun

and an article waffling on about a different company using AI (boring) to optimise engines (interesting)

https://newatlas.com/technology/ai-desi ... test-fire/

[Nik_SpeakerToCats]

Hmm.

Wasn't so long ago, on another forum, I found myself in bitter argument with some-one who sorta said aerospikes were a dead end, too heavy, too hot. Like 'rotary engines', they had no future.

IIRC, he was taken to task by some-one pointing out that eg 3D printing could solve the complex cooling channels, especially for the axially-symmetric type. Cone-shaped to us...

So where where they ??

Well, we now know they're alive and airborne at Peenemunde...