How much of an efficiency gain do you get when you are running at hypersonic speeds and riding your own shock wave?
“How much of an efficiency gain do you get when you are running at hypersonic speeds and riding your own shock wave?”
I don’t know about the shock wave part of it, but the scramjet effect is to take in huge amounts of air. The issue is that the engine can’t light off until it’s in the range of its cruise speed. You can get it to that speed but it takes a huge amount of fuel (not efficient) or an airborne launch from a high-speed aircraft (lots of control issues at launch).