Nuclear Powered Aircraft

Today, everybody have heard many nuclear powered vehicles like ships, aircraft carriers, submarines and satellites but how many of you heard of nuclear powered aircraft? Yep... an aircraft. Sounds like a very good idea, having an aircraft that can fly continuously without having to land or refuel for very long periods of time and a great military advantage. But, who want and how to put this much power...
... into an aircraft?

The idea of nuclear-powered aircraft seems crazy with the benefit of hindsight. But for the U.S. Air Force generals of the late 1940s and 1950s, it was the answer to a Cold War dilemma: How can you have a round-the-clock nuclear deterrent when the planes carrying atomic bombs have to stop for fuel every few hours? The fear was that a sneak attack from Soviet bombers could destroy the capacity of the U.S. to retaliate, thus providing an incentive for a first strike.

An atomic-powered bomber would provide the ultimate deterrent, the Air Force Generals believed. With an ability to stay aloft for an extended period, the planes could circle in Arctic airspace waiting for the orders to attack. Crews would live on the bombers much the way that submariners do in nuclear subs, which were just coming online.

US Nuclear Aircraft Project

The only US nuclear aircraft, XB-36H (developed from Convair B-36)
or better known as X-6

NEPA & ANP
In May 1946, the Nuclear Energy for the Propulsion of Aircraft (NEPA) project was started by the United States Air Force. Studies under this program were done until May, 1951 when NEPA was replaced by the Aircraft Nuclear Propulsion (ANP) program. The ANP program included provisions for studying two different types of nuclear-powered jet engines, General Electric's (an aviation company) Direct Air Cycle and Pratt & Whitney's (another aviation company) Indirect Air Cycle. ANP also contained plans for two B-36s to be modified by Convair (also an aviation company) under the MX-1589 project, one of the B-36s was to be used to study shielding requirements for an airborne reactor while the other was to be the X-6. The program was cancelled before the X-6 was completed, however.

The first operation of an aircraft engine on nuclear-power was achieved on January 31, 1956 using a modified General Electric J47 turbojet engine. The Aircraft Nuclear Propulsion program was terminated following the President's annual budget message to Congress in 1961.

General Electric's Direct Air Cycle Engine (the details are classified)

The Oak Ridge National Laboratory conducted research (Aircraft Reactor Experiment) to produce a nuclear powered aircraft. Two General Electric turbofan engines were successfully powered to nearly full thrust using two shielded reactors. The two engines complete with reactor system are currently located at the EBR-1 facility south of the Idaho National Laboratory.

The U.S. designed these engines to be used in a new specially designed nuclear bomber, the WS-125, which was eventually terminated by Eisenhower who cut NEPA and told Congress that there was no urgency for the program. Eisenhower did back a small scale program developing high temperature materials and high performance reactors. That program was terminated early in the Kennedy administration.

Project Pluto
In 1957, the Air Force and the U.S. Atomic Energy Commission contracted with the Lawrence Radiation Laboratory to study the feasibility of applying heat from nuclear reactors to ramjet engines. This research became known as Project Pluto. The engines being developed under this program were intended to power an unmanned cruise missile, called SLAM, for Supersonic Low Altitude Missile. The program succeeded in producing two test engines which were operated on the ground. On May 14, 1961, the world's first nuclear ramjet engine, "Tory-IIA," mounted on a railroad car, roared to life for just a few seconds. On July 1, 1964, seven years and six months after it was born, "Project Pluto" was cancelled.

Soviet Nuclear Aircraft Project
As the Allies main rival during the Cold War, the Soviets have their own nuclear aircraft program too. The Soviet program of developing nuclear aircraft resulted in the experimental Tupolev Tu-119, also known as the Tu-95LAL (LAL-in Russian mean- Flying Nuclear Laboratory). It was based on a Tupolev Tu-95 bomber. It had 4 conventional turboprop engines and an onboard nuclear reactor. The Tu-119 completed 34 research flights. Most of these were made with the reactor shut down.

The Soviet Nuclear Aircraft, Tu-95LAL (classified picture)

The main purpose of the flight phase was examining the effectiveness of the radiation shielding which was one of the main concerns for the engineers. Massive amounts of protection used resulted in radiation levels low enough to consider continuing development. But, as in the US, development never continued past this point. The obvious potential of the ICBM made the expensive program superfluous, and around the mid 1960s it was cancelled. Several other projects reached only design phase.

The Nuclear Reactor On-board Tu-95LAL (again, classified)

Nuclear aircraft is good idea actually... but we have to remember that everything (especially nuclear reactor) are not immune to accidents. Even nuclear power plant with the latest state of the art safety systems is not entirely perfect, let alone a flying "nuclear bomb" under your seat or on top of your head. We already seen many aircraft crashes in the news and sometime a nuclear submarine accidents somewhere in the deep ocean in the last decade, so its possible to assume a nuclear aircraft will suffer the same fate & greater disaster. Thankfully, the nuclear aircraft programs was cancelled since the advent of ICBM (Inter-Continental Ballistic Missile) in the 60s, kinda ironic... is it?

Again, if a nuclear aircraft crashes near your home... O_O!!!