Waverider

A WaveRider is a hypersonic aircraft design that improves its supersonic lift-to-drag ratio by using the shock waves being generated by its own flight as a lifting surface, a phenomenon known as compression lift. To date the only manned aircraft to use the technique was the Mach 3 supersonic XB-70 Valkyrie.

The waverider remains a well-studied design for high-speed aircraft in the Mach 5 and higher hypersonic regime, although no such design has yet entered production. The Boeing X-51A scramjet demonstration aircraft was tested from 2010 to 2013. In its final test flight, it reached a speed of to Mach 5.1 (3,400 mph; 5,400 km/h).

The waverider design concept was first developed by Terence Nonweiler of the Queen's University of Belfast, and first described in print in 1951 as a re-entry vehicle. It consisted of a delta-wing platform with a low wing loading to provide considerable surface area to dump the heat of re-entry. At the time, Nonweiler was forced to use a greatly simplified 2D model of airflow around the aircraft, which he realized would not be accurate due to flow across the wing. However, he also noticed that the spanwise flow would be stopped by the shockwave being generated by the aircraft, and that if the wing was positioned to deliberately approach the shock, the spanwise flow would be trapped under wing, increasing pressure, and thus increasing lift.

In the 1950s, the British started a space program based around the Blue Streak missile, which was, at some point, to include a manned vehicle. Armstrong-Whitworth were contracted to develop the re-entry vehicle, and unlike the U.S. space program they decided to stick with a winged vehicle instead of a ballistic capsule. Between 1957 and 1959, they contracted Nonweiler to develop his concepts further. This work produced a pyramid-shaped design with a flat underside and short wings. Heat was conducted through the wings to the upper cool surfaces, where it was dumped into the turbulent air on the top of the wing. In 1960, work on the Blue Streak was canceled as the missile was seen as being obsolete before it could have entered service. Work then moved to the Royal Aircraft Establishment (RAE), where it continued as a research program into high-speed (Mach 4 to 7) civilian airliners.

...
Wikipedia