Aerojet.

* Aerojet has completed testing of its Advanced Combined Cycle Integrated Inlet (ACCII). The test campaign, performed at the NASA Langley Unitary Plan Wind Tunnel (UPWT) test facility, represents the latest in a long history of combined-cycle approaches to manufacture everfaster aircraft. During the 1960s, the SR-71 Blackbird flew to speeds of Mach 3 using a turbo-ramjet combination cycle. Today, aerospace engineers remain challenged with developing technologies for aircraft capable of flight from runway takeoff to Mach 7 or better, with conventional jet fuels. Concepts have been studied by the US Air Force and NASA--from applications such as high speed strike/reconnaissance to low-cost 'airplane-like' space launch vehicles. Turbine Based Combined Cycle (TBCC) propulsion has been one accepted standard for these future high-speed aircraft designs. TBCC combines the low-speed performance and reliability of turbine engines with the performance and simplicity of a dedicated highspeed scram et engine. For years, designers have wrestled with the challenge of how to gracefully transition between the low speed and high-speed engines as the vehicle accelerates. Aerojet's patented ACCII, part of a suite of key combined cycle engine technologies, integrates the needs of the turbine engine and the scramjet engine into one design. "The ACCII inlet provides a true 'combined cycle approach, allowing smooth transition from low--to high-speed operation through the mission, as if the aircraft had one engine system," says Dick Bregard, Aerojet's vice president of Defense Programs. The highly instrumented test article was tested for more than three weeks. The broad test programme evaluated influences of several flight conditions as well as multiple hardware configurations.