Definitions

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.

  • noun A ramjet airplane engine designed for hypersonic flight that burns fuel in the supersonic airstream produced by the plane.

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.

  • noun aviation A jet engine capable of propelling an aircraft at hypersonic speeds; combustion of the fuel/air mixture occurs at supersonic speeds

Etymologies

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 4th Edition

[s(upersonic) + c(ombustion) + ramjet.]

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

Supersonic combustion + ramjet

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Examples

  • Recent breakthroughs in scramjet engines could mean two-hour flights from New York to Tokyo.

    New York to Tokyo in Two Hours » Fanboy.com 2007

  • Dryden Flight Research Center NASA's high-risk, high-payoff Hyper-X Program is ready to attempt its greatest challenge yet - flying a "scramjet" - powered X-43A research vehicle at nearly 10 times the speed of sound.

    WN.com - Business News 2010

  • There's no reason to think that a scramjet will be any cheaper than a rocket, and abundant reason to think otherwise.

    X-51 Waverider Set to Fly This Fall - NASA Watch 2009

  • But Paull had been building his device -- a cross between a jet and a rocket, known as a scramjet -- for 10 years.

    Space Plane 2007

  • The so-called scramjet aircraft zipped through the air yesterday at almost 10 times the speed sound.

    CNN Transcript Nov 17, 2004 2004

  • A scramjet is a supersonic combustion ramjet, while a ramjet is a jet engine using the engine's forward motion to compress air.

    Latest Articles 2010

  • a "scramjet" - powered X-43A research vehicle at nearly 10 times the speed of sound.

    WN.com - Business News 2010

  • The engine on the X-51, called a supersonic-combustion ramjet, or "scramjet," pulls off a couple of especially tricky tasks.

    When Supersonic Is Just Too Slow 2010

  • - They call it a "scramjet," an engine so blindingly fast that it could carry an airplane from San Francisco to Washington, D.C., in about 20 minutes -- or even quicker.

    From On High 2004

  • - They call it a "scramjet," an engine so blindingly fast that it could carry an airplane from San Francisco to Washington, D.C., in about 20 minutes -- or even quicker.

    Archive 2004-11-01 2004

Comments

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  • "Scramjet is a very handy semi-acronym, standing for Supersonic Combustion Ramjet. In layman's terms this amounts to an engine with a forward vent that scoops in air as it travels through the atmosphere. The air is compressed through narrowing chambers (and therefore heated), before being mixed with hydrogen. This combination combusts, emitting an exhaust through a rearward nozzle and producing enough thrust to reach hypersonic speeds of between Mach 7 (seven times the speed of sound) and maybe as high as Mach 18, leaving nothing more toxic in the air than a trail of water vapour, for the most part."

    - Geoffrey Wright, The coming of age of Scramjet, theage.com.au, 10 September 2009.

    September 12, 2009