Jun 122012
Found in the NASA HQ Historical archives was an artists impression of a supersonic manned ramjet powered aircraft, dating to either the late war years or early postwar period. It’s a fairly sizable craft with very small wings of unusual planform, razor edges and angular cross-section. The fuselage is almost entirely engine; the cockpit is squeezed into a structure used to hold the internal “spike” diffuser.
On the whole the design looks like it’d fly extremely fast, after having been launched to altitude by a rocket booster (or carried by a large aircraft), but I certainly wouldn’t want to try to land it.
