Scramjets and Surfboards: Some Forgotten History

Anecdotal examples that illustrate the contributions that basic studies have made to aircraft and rocket ignition and combustion behavior are recalled. Some almost forgotten experimental supersonic combustion studies done in the 1950s by a small group at the National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics Lewis Flight Propulsion Laboratory are recalled and described. Those studies anticipated the hypersonic, nearly Mach 10, flight that was achieved 50-some years later by a National Aeronautics and Space Administration aircraft in November 2004. A suggestion for further work related to combustion in the scramjet aircraft is made. Consideration of the use of hydrocarbon fuel spiked with a pyrophoric ignition and combustion enhancer, rather than hydrogen, is suggested.