Re: Supre Cruise
Yes, SR-71 was a bit different though, because they could exceed M3. At those speeds, the compressor of a jet is almost becoming a drag item, & SR-71 bypassed most of the air directly through some big 'drainpipes' along the outside of the casing. They were essentially running almost like a ramjet at those speeds, with little compression & just igniting fuel in the airstream, running on reheat (afterburner for our left-pondian friends).
The big spiky-things at the front of the Blackbird engines moved forward & rearwards to manage the shockwaves. Unstarts in the intake could be extreme in the Blackbird, and at least one was lost because of this. A pilot's helmet was cracked by the force of his head hitting the side as the aircraft as it yawed during an unstart.
Concorde got the sweet spot of speed & performance. Trying to go faster would require more exotic fuselage materials & getting certification for safe operation faster than M2.abit with paying passengers rather than steely-eyed fighter jonnies would, I suspect, have been too difficult & costly - the Americans spent 1BN USD developing a faster passenger jet than Concorde & gave up.
As someone else says, there's tons of info on pprune, & there's also the heritageconcorde site, & several really good books, & the itvv.com Concorde flightdeck DVDs, which after many years are about to stop being made. If you're going to buy anything, get the itvv dvs.
Biting the hand that feeds IT
