I always miss the application of the Whitcomb area rule in the Skylon airframe.

re; kwarks
Whitcomb's area rule only applies in high speed atmospheric flight. On launch the SKYLON spend very little time in atmosphere thick enough for it to matter, on reentry and landing the additional drag helps slow the craft down and not sculpting the fuselage simplifies design and manufacture and very well might make it stronger.

cautiously optimistic, however, remember when we had those ultra efficient aerospike engines and the whole project was brought down because the fuel tanks weren't strong enough?

@ Kraft, Pikeman, the fuselage design of Skylon is actually very close to a Sears-Haack aerodynamic body - look it up. With the exception of the control surfaces and the wings/engines, it's aerodynmically quite well sculpted, and conversely to Pikemans comment about drag, I think the most challenging aspect of this design for achieving orbit is deceleration on re-entry, it looks quite slippery to me, it's bound to need some sort of air brake.

GeoffG
Quote from Mark Hempsell of Reaction Engines.
"Why a Curved nacelle? – the most frequently asked technical question. The answer is: the air intake on the front of the nacelle needs to point directly into the incoming airflow whereas SKYLON’s wings and body need to fly with an angle of incidence to create lift, so the intake points down by 7 degrees to account for this. The rocket thrust chambers in the back of nacelle need to point through the centre of mass of the vehicle so are angled down; again by 7 degrees but it is a coincidence the angle is the same."

@GeoffG
Starfighter pilots were all hotshots who spent most of their flight-time in the "inverted position". With this in mind... (grin)

In order to cool the air as fast as claimed, the tubes or plates must be very close together. This requires tiny air flow passages. The heat exchanger must necessarily be in the path of the oncoming air, so it will produce significant drag. It will also be subjected to enormous turbulence, which will require substantial weight. Will the gain in performance overcome this burden?