February 23, 2015 at 1:32 pm
I hope to have a better understanding of issues with turbofan engines so here’s a couple of questions:
Do turbofans in tactical combat aircraft suffer the same efficiency loss at transsonic speeds (of aircraft) as do civilian airliners? One can read that the airliners go up to mach 0.9 mostly because their turbofans can’t cope with transsonic speeds of air going into them. But don’t the military planes have longish intakes, sometimes with ramps and what not, designed specifically so the speed of airflow is always maintained under the transsonic region?
Wouldn’t that mean that even if the plane is going, say, mach 1.5, the airflow to the fan section is still not faster than mach 0.9? And if so – wouldn’t that mean the turbofan would be just as efficient as when the whole plane is going mach 0.9? So the fan section would contribute just as much thrust at mach 1.5 (airplane speed) as it would at mach 0.9?