Bell Hypersonic Rocket Transport 1960

American manned rocketplane. In March 1960 Bell proposed a revised hypersonic transport design based on its work on boost-glide vehicles during the 1950's. There was no government or airline interest in the concept.

The aircraft would be powered by six turbo-ramjets. The engines would function as turbojets until the aircraft reached 15,000 m, then convert to ramjet performance and take the aircraft to Mach 5.2 at 36,500 m. The same aircraft, equipped with launch rails, would serve as the launch platform for a suborbital rocket-powered spaceplane based on Bell's Dynasoar design. This would reach a maximum altitude of 64 km and 6.7 km/s. After reaching its intercontinental destination, auxiliary turbojets would be used for subsonic flight in the area of the destination airfield and landing.