Propeller.

This is coolbert:

In my last blog entry, I mentioned the prop driven aircraft the Pogo. How it was, at the time of it's conception, already an inferior aircraft. Inferior to jet powered aircraft.

Indeed, the jet engine came along and reached a level of design just at the right time. The major combatants of World War Two [WW2] had reached, with propeller driven aircraft using internal combustion engines, the limit of development.

 Further increases of aircraft speed was JUST NOT possible. Small, incremental developments that DID increase speed were being made all the time. But the improvement in speed was small compared to the effort required.

Part of the problem with propeller driven aircraft using internal combustion engines was the propeller itself. At greater and greater speeds, approaching the sound barrier, the propeller acts as an impediment to further increases in speed [a shock wave ??] is created in front of the propeller that inhibits the rotation of the prop [??].

Until the advent of the practical jet engine, there WAS NO solution to this problem.

Rocket engines were thought for a while to be an answer to the speed problem. NO propeller, NO impediment to increased speed. But the rocket engines of the World War Two [WW2] era, as used in the ME-163, were too DANGEROUS to use for the most part. Powerful thrust and speed, yes, but also danger from the explosive and corrosive chemicals used in such rocket planes.

Jet powered aircraft became the standard for high performance after WW2.

However, in the immediate years after the end of WW2, research WAS DONE into the proposition that a propeller driven aircraft, if designed properly, could break the sound barrier.

And this research concluded that IT WAS possible to design a prop driven aircraft that could exceed Mach speed. However, such an aircraft was not felt to be efficient or there was a better way to do the high speed stuff [jets]. Further research was abandoned.

This concept of a greater-than-Mach-speed-prop-driven-aircraft may be making a comeback. This is surprising:

"the rapid development of the jet engine doomed the supersonic propeller and the project was abandoned by 1949. However, rising fuel costs have generated renewed interest in high-speed propellers since turboprops are more fuel efficient than turbojet and turbofan engines, so we may not have heard the last of the supersonic propeller."

This does make sense!! But what will come of it? I feel little. We will always go with what we have at the time and what is well know. Like the automobile with the internal combustion engine.

coolbert.