What single word is the enemy for all airplane engines?

Question

This posed a singnificant challenge to Kelly Johnson and other members fo the "Locked Skunk Works" when designing the SR-71/YF-12A, how did they overcome those challenges?

Answer 1

Heat is the enemy of all engines. In the black birds this was answered with the liberal use of titanium and titanium alloys. Another enemy might be air to feed the engine efficiently. In the black birds case this was done by using the shock waves from the nose of the plane which were funneled to the engine creating more than enough pressure to feed the engine. In fact it created too much pressure and they installed movable cones in the engine inlets to control the air pressure entering the engine.

Answer 2

I would have to go with "EFFICIENCY" on this one. Its still a mild guess, but I think this is more a trivial question anyways :)

The engines in the Blackbird where a hybrid. Normal turbojet engines lose efficiency at higher speeds, and cannot operate indefinitely on afterburners.
Pratt and Whitney built an engine that was a turbojet, and a ramjet, all into one. At lower speeds, the turbojet did all the work, while at the higher speeds, the ramjet did all the work while the turbojet simply throttled back and allowed the supersonic air to pass through the compressor section. However, heat still played a bit in this engine at higher speeds, where the combustion section would get so hot that the metal would soften almost to the point of melting. Lockheeds decision to put the J58 engines in the blackbird resulted in a plane that became more efficient the faster it flew.

thats my answer as it pertains to the SR-71

Answer 3

You are asking a Two part question here.

1. Heat and friction are the enemies of all aircraft, as a general rule.

2. In reality, Birds are one of the most dangerous enemies of Jet engines. A long time ago, a 4 engine Jet liner inquested 1000s of starlings while taking off at Boston's Logan Inter-nation airport.

I witnessed the the crash from a small fishing boat....one hundred yards off the run way. The airplane had full power just as it left the run way......then at 200 feet of altitude, all four engines stalled. The Airplane dropped like a rock. The FAA spent the next 5 years findings methods to disperse the Small birds. They finally found a natural Enemy of the Starling....The Falcon Bird.

Also, Sand is a major problem for aircraft engines...both propeller and Jet engines.

Constant maintenance is required for all aircraft.

Hope this helps.

Answer 4

Birds

Answer 5

Uh, hypersonic? The government gave them whatever they wanted untill they made the thing fly. Major design work on the engines to make them opperate at such high speed without just blowing the flame out in the burner cans.

Answer 6

It could be any of these:
-Bird
-Gravity
-Bomb
-Metal (as in "a piece of metal". A piece of metal from another airplane got sucked into the engine of the Concorde, causing engine failure, and it subsequently crashed, beginning the countdown to the end of the Concorde.)

Answer 7

The single word that is the enemy of all airplane engines is CRASHING!!!!

Seriously, probably the single most frequent cause of damage to aircraft engines is the same as for any engine and that is FRICTION. It is the cause for wear in an engine and wear is the enemy of all engines.

Answer 8

Fuel

Answer 9

Heat.
In your example they need to cool the thrust low enough so as not to be detected with heat seeking radar.
They mixed the exhaust with ducted air that does not flow through the engine.

Answer 10

FOD (Foreign Object[s] Damage/Debris)