Briggs Aerospace Technologies
 

Specifications:

Briggs FXG Vancoollins

Dimensions

Length: 52 metres (provisional due to variations in nose-cone length)

Wingspan: 31 metres (provisional due to variations in wingspan)

Height: 12 metres (provisional due to tail height and number of tailplanes)

Powerplant:

Initial; 5 Perm engine company (ex-Solovyev) D-30F6 afterburning turbo-fans with 34,000 lbs thrust per engine total 77.2 tonnes of thrust

Alternate power-plants: Lyulka AL-31F afterburning turbo-fans rated at 12,500 kgs (27,562 lbs.) thrust each with afterburning total 62.5 tonnes of thrust if the Perm engines are not available. If the Lyulka engines are also not available, 6 engines of aftermarket military types such as Pratt & Whitney F-100 will be sort.

Hypersonic development program

A single hypersonic prototype engine is anticipated to produce greater than fifty tonnes of thrust. Two engines will be lifted by the FXG during later test flights and comparitive trials.

Initial period

Early test flights will use one or two rocket motor(s) to accelerate the aircraft from Mach 2 to a sustained Mach 7.4 for 1-2 minutes. These first flights will form primarily envelop, airframe and power plant dynamic testing

Hypersonic engine prototype testing

Later tests: 2 hypersonic engines with coupled inlets and 1 or 2 hypersonic engine + one rocket engine for low orbital flights and HYT test parameters

Weights

Empty equipped weight (with 5 Perm engine company engines: excluding the hypersonic engine(s)) 33 tonnes

Thrust to weight ratio (earlier test flights): 0.96:1

MTOW thrust to weight ratio (equipped with two 30 tonne hypersonic engine prototypes at zero thrust***): 0.48:1

***from hypersonic engines

Normal take-off weight: 80 tonnes

Maximum take-off weight: 160 tonnes

Payload allows for additional weight of fuel and hypersonic development engines of up to 30 tonnes each: engines will be developed individually though two different types may be flown simultaneously.

Maximum fuel: up to 75 tonnes

Normal fuel: 46 tonnes - 26 tonnes for hypersonic flight (including cryo-fuels, such as LOX and H), 20 tonnes for ascent, descent and reserves

Additional envelopes

Number to be built: 4

Crew: 1 -2

Expected range at 150,000 ft and Mach 7.4: normal fuel 9,000 km

Expected ceiling 200,000 feet (normal)

Up to 600 km orbit (with rocket engine – J2000 HYT test programme).

Maximum speed limited to Mach 8.0 during Neecenow development

Hypersonic engine V-max will be established after engine certification for the J2000 programme

MOMN configuration dependent; up to Mach 25

Take-off distance 1600 metres (variation depending on wing and fuselage design)

Landing distance 1900 metres at MTOW without reverse thrust (variation depending on wing and fuselage design)

G-limits +8.0 -5.0G

Hypersonic engine program: Briggs

Briggs will be building up to 8 different hypersonic engine prototypes for testing and evaluation: this may include two of more examples of the same power plant. The Aceson budget gives $800 million to the FXG Vancoollins program for engine prototyping and development.


 
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