Kraken tamer

NUKE: I think you may be on to something. It's difficult to say for sure because some pictures show the engines mounted inline with the low wing and other pictures show the engines mounted above the wing, inline with the center of mass. Bunsen: I took a hard look at the SR71's engines. They inlets are angled down, as you say to face the relative airflow. I have no problem accepting this as fact. However, I still have problems believing that they would angle the nozzles down to compensate for lift produced by the wing. In every aircraft I have flown and seen, the engines are angled the opposite way to make them parallel with the direction of flight. Indeed the SR71 also does this. It's thrust vector has a negative angle of incidence as you can see in this photo: http://lide.uhk.cz/fim/student/tazlaon1/fotoFull/SR-71%20%285%29.jpg and many others.

I disagree that pointing the engines in a direction other then the direction of flight would be beneficial. And if they really needed to partially support the weight of the craft with thrust, they could have just pointed the nozzle in the downwards direction and kept the pre-cooler stage strait. My theory (and it's just a theory) is that they plan to use the shape of the engine as a lifting surface, but I could be horribly wrong.

Wouldn't there also be a problem with getting the flame to burn even in an oxygenated environment since there is no gravity to make the spent gasses rise so new ones would replace them? Wouldn't you need some kind of pressure/recirculating system?

Follow the link: http://selair.selkirk.bc.ca/Training/Aerodynamics/Aerodynamics%20for%20professional%20pilots.pdf On page 186 is the first time it introduces supersonic theory and there is a rough graph. No numbers as this would depend on the Reynolds number as well as a couple of other things, but gives you a general overview of how things work in the near supersonic, transonic, supersonic and a brief look at hypersonic ranges. It's geared towards pilots of commercial airplanes though, so much of the book is centered around passenger airplanes.

Maneuvering above Ma (mach attach) speed can be done with conventional control surfaces as there is no flow separation in the supersonic regime (this is evident by supersonic airfoils having sharp corners). More of a concern is maneuvering below Ma and above Mcr (critical Mach number). Engineers get around this by using stablators (control surfaces that only change angle of attack without changing camber). However, if you plan on using sub sonic airfoils you must sweep the wings beyond the mach number or else you will suffer excessive wave drag due to the round leading edge. The hypersonic regime is much like the super sonic regime with some minor differences being the much higher mach angle, and the Cdr (co efficient of drag) will start to increase linearly, due to more of the drag being produced by ionization of the air as opposed to wave drag.