"America's Crazy Attempts to Build Nuclear-Powered Aircraft" Topic

"Ah, the Atomic Age, when nuclear energy seemed the ticket to a future of limitless possibilities. For a generation after 1945 the United States explored all kinds of nuclear propulsion concepts. Some, like naval power plants for subs and ships, proved both revolutionary and effective. Others proved possible to develop but impractical to pursue.

Of these concepts the nuclear-powered aircraft now seems the most fanciful, but billions of dollars and years of top-flight research sunk into the Aircraft Nuclear Propulsion (ANP) program chased the idea before its demise. Between the end of World War II and the dawn of Camelot American engineers figured out how to fit a reactor in an airplane and make it generate thrust without frying the crew. American leaders couldn't figure out how to pay for it or why they needed it.

Today the ANP program is remembered as an Atomic Age boondoggle whose only remains consist of three-story-tall experimental units and giant hangars with six-foot-thick walls. When cancelled, the program was about to create flight-ready hardware and an airframe to put it in for a flight test program. However doubts about the future of manned bombers and concerns about accidents clouded a costly program ripe for cuts…"
Full article here
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Amicalement
Armand

Not to mention the massively radioactive exhaust.

Neat idea, and regularly abused in the Tom Swift novels, but runs afoul of radioactive contamination and a lack of understanding of long-term effects of exposure.

Yeah, but if the pilot is good,

YouTube link

The Russian were trying the same, but faked it, Russian did fit a reactor on a bomber, years later two of crew died leukaemia!

The Americans looked at two different systems for engines:
1) Direct heating – radioactive elements in the engine directly heating the air, as you can guess very reactive exhaust
2) Indirect heating – heating fluid that then heats the air flowing thought engine, a lot less radioactive.

With the modern knowledge of radiation shielding it would be possible to fit a Reactor on a plane responsibly safely.

The NB-36H. She carried a working nuclear reactor and an experimental power plant.

More here:

456fis.org/NB-36H.htm

With the modern knowledge of radiation shielding it would be possible to fit a Reactor on a plane responsibly safely.

And when that plane is shot down or crashes?

Heck, in the late forties we thought nuclear meant unlimited, free power with no drawbacks. We imagined that if you got blown up by a nuke, you'd get super-powers. We were trying to fit reactors to refrigerators, recliner chairs, tricycles, you name it. We learned better.

you mean like this?

Looks like one, Gwydion. Don't need headlights, 'cause the whole car glows so bright in the dark. The driver, too.

The Steambirds!