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The CL-1201 design project studied a nuclear-powered aircraft of extreme size, with a wingspan of 1,120 feet (340 m). [4] Had it been built, it would have had the largest wingspan of any airplane to date, [5] and more than three times that of any aircraft of the 20th century.
A nuclear-powered aircraft is a concept for an aircraft intended to be powered by nuclear energy. The intention was to produce a jet engine that would heat compressed air with heat from fission, instead of heat from burning fuel. [ 1 ]
Below is a list of nuclear powered aircraft and concepts: Name or designation Manufacturer Role Nationality Period Notability 9M730 Burevestnik [1] [2] [3] [4]
The Convair X-6 was a proposed experimental aircraft project to develop and evaluate a nuclear-powered jet aircraft.The project was to use a Convair B-36 bomber as a testbed aircraft, and though one NB-36H was modified during the early stages of the project, the program was canceled before the actual X-6 and its nuclear reactor engines were completed.
The United States Aircraft Reactor Experiment (ARE) was a 2.5 MW th thermal-spectrum nuclear reactor experiment designed to attain a high power density and high output temperature for use as an engine in a nuclear-powered bomber aircraft. The advantage of a nuclear-powered aircraft over a conventionally-powered aircraft is that it could remain ...
The next stage in the development of a nuclear-powered bomber would have been the Tupolev Tu-119, a modified Tu-95, which would have been powered by both nuclear-fuelled and kerosene-fuelled turboprop engines: two Kuznetsov NK-14A nuclear-fuelled engines inboard, fed with heat from a fuselage-mounted reactor and two kerosene-fed Kuznetsov NK-12 turboprops outboard.
The Convair NB-36H was an experimental aircraft that carried a nuclear reactor to test its protective radiation shielding for the crew, but did not use it to power the aircraft. Nicknamed "The Crusader", [1] it was created for the Aircraft Nuclear Propulsion program (ANP for short), to show the feasibility of a nuclear-powered bomber. [2]
From the mid-1940s, there was interest in using nuclear-powered aircraft as bombers. [4] [5] [N 1] In a conventional jet engine, thrust is provided by heating air using jet fuel and accelerating it out a nozzle. In a nuclear engine, heat is supplied by a reactor, whose consumables last for months instead of hours.