>>64835720
Look up the CL-1201, though that was a different era. You're definitely doing some sort of indirect cycle, aiming for maximum efficiency. So probably want some version of electric fan + direct use of heat (which is also critical anyway because you need to cool your reactor). A skycarrier and some sort of heavy duty dedicated nuclear air defense (lots of DEWs and such with multi-hundred mile ranges) cruisers as escorts/air superiority/strat defense are the most sensible applications (to the extent such a thing makes any sense at all). So subsonic is fine, hundreds of mph and direct flight over land is still enormously faster then a sea carrier.

>>64835720
Considering the necessary weight of shielding I doubt there's a way to make it viable on earth. It's takeoff that would be the big problem though, so maybe you could rocket launch parts that assemble an airplane at high altitude or something silly like that.

>>64835731
>How will you get this monstrosity off the ground?
>Oh, we'll just strap one hundred and eighty-two 747 engines to it like a team of horses to a chariot. Don't worry, it'll be fine
What the fuck lmao

>>64835739
Nah, it's plenty viable from a theory perspective. The main thing is "just" to scale it up, and that means to like, literally the size of an actual aircraft carrier or bigger (though obviously far less mass). CL1201 design had a wingspan of 1120' and mass of ~5400 tons for example. Then you can realize you don't actually need much shielding because radiation falls off with the square of distance and a lot of directions can be ones you don't care about if you lay the thing out right. Above and below, to the back, you only need to more seriously protect crewed bits and take the rads into account for electronics (but satellite industry has given us a lot of very heavily hardened designs already, networking can be done with fiber optics not copper, etc). Of course, the value of that vs doing other approaches never seemed to make sense.
- Carries way less
- Probably not really good for general logistics base usage like a normal carrier
- More complex defense situation
- Far uglier risks if it fails
+ Way faster to shift operation theaters, can operate over land
+ Carried aircraft have big launch energy advantage
+ If DEWs and auto turrets/micromissiles good enough, can't be sneaked up on like submarines can a normal fleet
+ Much harder to hit even with hypersonics from a distance, it can relocate so fast and DEWs work way better at 30k+ with less atmosphere and interference
# probably more challenging logistics, though might be something of a wash

>>64835746
Cold War had some awesome can-do attitude man. On a more plebian yet still insane scale go read that Skunkworks book on how the SR71 came together, real cool shit. Or Apollo. There was a great deal of "we can attempt anything and should give it serious consideration" even if sometimes it was insane.

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>>64835739
They operated a reactor in a non purpose built aircraft that did not utilize it for its own propulsion in any way, and did so in the mid '50s.
I don't think your criticism is valid based on this, but if you still think so I'd be interested to hear why.
Takeoff is an interesting problem, perhaps some sort of catapult assist system similar to an aircraft carrier?

>>64835765
CL1201 is completely unviable because of >>64835746. 184 jet engines for takeoff is somehow even more silly than just building it in space and then flying it back down.

>>64835780
I'm aware of that aircraft, but OP specifically said that unshielded reactors weren't allowed.

>>64835788
What? OP said you can't have open cycle ramjets.

>>64835809
How is an unshielded reactor any better? You're still spewing out radiation wherever you go.

>>64835813
Gamma rays going into the sky is completely different than radioactive particles trailing behind you.

>>64835813
nta but I think your knowledge of nuclear power is really, really minimal anon. There is a stupendous difference in actually actively emitting fissile byproducts vs the tiny chance of some neutrons hitting some atmospheric gas and shifting the isotope maybe. And of lot of the "radiation" (gamma/beta) is completely non-activating at all and poses zero risk to anyone miles away, it's nothing vs what's bombarding the Earth all the time. A lightly shielded reactor that is closed-cycle is only a risk to people nearby (if they don't have separate shielding). It's not putting stuff into the environment that gets into people in a significant way.

Assuming it doesn't crash/get shot down of course. Then it sucks real bad.

>>64835720
Most of the B-52s we lost went down in our own country or that of an ally. Due to accidents or airframe failures. Nuclear propulsion just means dropping a bunch of fallout on ourselves.

>>64835820
Most nuclear reactions (and all fission reactions) are not aneutronic, so there is some activation risk too anon it's not just gamma/beta, and even gamma can knock about neutrons if it's strong enough. But that risk is primarily on the ground, where there are lots of heavy elements around that can turn into long lived nastier stuff which can get incorporated into living creatures. If you look at the various regular light elements the possible isotopes and decay patterns just aren't a serious concern. Like take nitrogen-13 which you'll find plenty naturally from cosmic rays or whatever. It has a half life of ~10 minutes, and the decay (into carbon-13) is a low energy gamma that only goes a few hundred feet through atmosphere.

tl;dr: if atmospheric activation was a threat we'd be living it already because Earth is bombarded by a shitload of high energy radiation 24/7/365. We're fine though because none of the paths are like what you get from activating ground.

>>64835850
Yeah that's a real risk, though depends on specifics of mass budget. Though you could have the construction/rework bases be middle of nowhere Alaska or something and then make it a rule to never fly over CONUS/allied land except in time of direct war with extreme need.

if you had a plane with unlimited power could you do cool EW stuff or is it diminishing returns past a certain point?

>>64835881
The opposite, the larger you are the more efficient generally except you don't benefit from economies of scale (ironically) as much because of low unit count.

Landing gear or no landing gear? That seems like a lot of mass saving if you do without.

>>64835881
A nuclear reactor can offer effectively (ie, refuel once every 10 years) unlimited *energy*, but it doesn't offer unlimited *power* (energy per unit of time), and that distinction actually does matter a lot in a military context. One of the points of the new Ford class carriers for example is to have more energy budget for future systems. Here too there would be a max power ceiling, and lot of that has to go into propulsion, and then everything else needed. Plus you still have to deal with heat dissipation for anything actively sucking energy.

And for EW in particular the inverse square law still applies, and you almost certainly don't want your nuclear skyship anywhere close to the action. So it'd probably feature to some extent but I doubt it'd be that big a change. Conventional stuff gives you a lot of power, it just runs out faster.

>>64835890
>Landing gear or no landing gear? That seems like a lot of mass saving if you do without.
No landing gear, obviously. You have an option between 182 jet engines or irradiating your ground crews, landing and taking off again is not an option.

>>64835904
Let's say you plan on a fleet with a minimum active count of 20 in the air at all times.
You might be able to justify special infrastructure for landing with no gear for that. A sort of two way catapult/cradle to speed it up for launch and slow it down for landing, with the interface mass being on the ground.

>>64835917
It's not the gear that's the problem, it's landing at all. Once you get one of these things in the air, it's up for good. You would do some sort of crew module swap rather than landing.

What would even be the purpose of building an airplane with functionally unlimited mechanical endurance if you're just going to use it like a normal plane?

>>64835927
I mean a fleet of 20 with a 10 year deployment would mean two landings a year for overhaul, that doesn't seem unreasonable to me.

>>64835904
I don't see any reason it can't be landed on a salt flat or in water depending on the design.
>>64835927
>What would even be the purpose of building an airplane with functionally unlimited mechanical endurance if you're just going to use it like a normal plane?
It doesn't though. Nuclear reactors in ships do need refueling (see Refueling and Overhaul (ROH)), 5-20 years is a long time but it's a lot shorter then the lifetime of a capital ship. Given what we see of B-52s and so on, I see no reason why we'd want to retire a skycarrier/skycruiser airframe just because its reactor ran down, they'd be huge capital investments. And given the power requirements and weight limits vs a ship it'd probably be towards the shorter end of the scale.

But given increases in power density and the value of having instantaneous power boosts available beyond the steady power of the reactor (plus potential for energy regeneration in some cases), such an aircraft would probably carry some sizable battery/capacitor banks too. So could shut down the reactor and then still have a powered landing 30 minutes later or whatever.

I'd wager a guess at being dropped from a mothership or rocket powered takeoff, shielding around only the cockpit for the pilots because fuck everyone else, scramjets, I don't give a shit what you say, meant to fly fast, fuck shit up, and leave, before anyone even knew it was there. But what's the point of that? you'd have to also develop ordnance that can handle that kind of delivery. So why not just use a missile instead?
If you're looking to build a plane that can loiter like a ship or sub, you're better off just refueling the planes in air instead of relying on nuclear power. Eventually the fucker will have to land for maintenance at some point, it isn't a something like a boat or spaceship that can be fixed while in route if need be. Maybe use them for super long patrols or something followed by a decent downtime for maintenance and to swap crews or something. I just don't see nuclear powered craft really being worthwhile outside of water and space.

The russians tried, the result was the Toropets nuclear explosion

>>64835765
>Far uglier risks if it fails
That's a bit of an understatement, but yea.