Morrow Aviation Assets

[mmartin798]

Originally Posted by cosmicfish

If you take away the fuel, what you have left is a ducted fan, not a jet - literally. And as odd as it may sound, that jet, even when dominated by fan thrust, changes everything. I started out in aerospace engineering, and the physics of fan propulsion says that ducted fans work best in a pusher configuration and at low speed, as at high speed duct drag dominates. There is a reason you don't really see ducted fan aircraft that don't have that jet running down the center.

And even if you could, why would Morrow want the added complexity? Are they really in that much of a hurry?

I tend to agree that jets by and large add unnecessary complexity to the Project. To make it work, we have to assume a different design reactor for jet aircraft that generate less electrical power by diverting the heat from the plasma into producing thrust rather than electrical power. This would also require some modification to route a couple of plenums to the reactor, but that shouldn't be that onerous.

A case could be made for the Project's use of jets for priority transport. But this would not require many. Something like a Citation CJ4. Might as well order a couple of those with all those V-150/300s.