GW’s Ramjet Book Is Now Available!

This has been a long time coming,  because I originally finished writing the book back in 2017.  I offered it to a technical publisher,  who took over 2 years to decline publishing it as a hardcopy,  hardcover book.  It then languished as a back-burner item,  while I figured out how to really do this myself,  in between more pressing obligations.  But I knew that I really did need to get this book “out there”,  because I am an old retired person,  and so I will not be around for that many years yet to come.  I’d rather this knowledge and experience to not die with me.

This is not your usual academic tome.  It is more of a very extensive “how-to” compendium of the things that actually worked for me and my colleagues,  while actually doing real ramjet work.  The scope is subsonic combustion ramjet,  not combined cycles,  and not supersonic combustion ramjet (scramjet).  It covers mainly liquid-fueled and solid gas generator-fed ramjets.  It bears about the same relationship to ramjet engineering,  that Sighard F. Hoerner’s self-published books,  “Fluid Dynamic Drag” and “Fluid Dynamic Lift”,  bore to aerodynamical engineering.  No real publisher wanted to publish those books,  either,  but scads of people found them very useful anyway!  I hope you find my book useful. 

I now have an initial solution:  I can literally email the book as pdf files to those who want to buy it. 

It exists as some 27 pdf files:  one for the “up-front” stuff,  one each for all 22 chapters,  and one each for all 4 appendices.  Each chapter has its own page numbering,  its own figure numbering,  and its own reference list.  The “up-front” stuff includes a foreword,  biographical data,  a table of contents,  and (quite uniquely !!) another table of contents with a paragraph indicating content for each chapter!

If you want to buy the book,  just contact me,  email is best!  My email is gwj5886@gmail.com.  (I will need your email to send the files,  in any event.)  I will give you my physical address,  to which you can send the purchase amount by check or money order. 

When I receive it,  I will email the files to you in multiple emails,  since there are so many and they are large.  Plus,  I will follow up to make sure you get them all! 

Base price is $100 per copy.  Out here rural,  the Texas sales tax is only 6.25% (and I have a Texas sales tax certificate),  so the sales tax amount is $6.25.  That puts the total purchase amount at $106.25,  turn-key. 

That’s how I need to do this for now.  Soon I hope to be able to take credit cards by voice over the phone,  which would speed the process up for you.  But that is not ready yet.  Watch this space for updates,  I will add that capability soon. 

Eventually,  if I can find qualified help,  I hope to set up another site that automates the payment and send-out processes.  But that is for the future.

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As examples of my real-world experience,  I have included some pictures here.  I hope these help inspire in you enough confidence that I really know what I am talking about,  so that you will be more inclined to buy the book.

Figure 1 below shows the hybridized ground test hardware that I used to great advantage,  doing ramjet tests on the ground in a direct-connect facility,  long ago.  It coupled a heavyweight lab motor as a short-burn solid gas generator,  to a flight-weight combustor and inlets.  This hardware was extremely effective for testing experimental fuel propellants,  experimental combustor insulations,  and one experimental fuel flow rate control approach.

Figure 2 below illustrates what the exhaust plume looked like for one of these tests,  conducted “open-air nozzle”,  with both an experimental fuel and an experimental combustor insulation,  back in 1991.  Most of the sparkler streaks were from the insulation,  not the fuel! 

Believe it or not,  this particular test was the first time anybody ever burned high-percentage boron efficiently in a ramjet!  See the smoke-free clarity of the plume downstream of the fire as proof.  Even the metal oxide smoke is barely visible downstream.  However,  the incandescent glare from it (and some soot) is part of what makes the tailpipe flame opaquely brilliant.   

Figure 3 below shows a modern cutaway display model of the Russian surface-to-air missile known to NATO as the SA-6 “Gainful”.  It was a solid gas generator fed ramjet,  with an “integral booster”,  meaning the booster rocket was housed inside the combustor itself,  not a staged-off item.  As a young engineer,  I was the lone engineer among 3 propellant chemists who did the actual exploitation work on this foreign technology.  We duplicated the solid fuel-rich propellant and its processing,  tested it static and with air,  and I put together a computer trajectory model of the system,  which matched performance seen on the battlefield.  This knowledge used to be classified,  but no longer (not with public display models).

Figure 4 below is a two-view picture of an ASALM-PTV being launched from an A-7 Corsair-2.  It was a liquid-fueled ramjet with an integral booster.  I worked on ASALM,  which was a prototype for a high-altitude supersonic ramjet-powered cruise missile that (unfortunately in my opinion) never proceeded to operational status,  because of treaty limitations. 

It was flight tested 7 times,  and met or exceeded all objectives on 6 of those.  On the first of those tests,  it accidentally went hypersonic due to an assembly error in its fuel throttle controls.  Way back in 1980,  this thing accelerated in ramjet,  at low altitude,  to about Mach 6!   A different picture of it (not here) on the same airplane,  I consider to be a sort of “family portrait”.  I worked on ASALM,  and my father was lead engineering designer for the A-7. 

Figure1 – Hybridized Ground Test Hardware

Figure 2 – Typical Experimental Open-Air Nozzle Ramjet Test

Figure 3 – Modern Cutaway Display Article of the SA-6

Figure 4 – Two-View of ASALM-PTV Launched From A-7 Corsair-2