Can t fighter planes be nuclear powered? Then there would be no in flight refueling problem

Nuclear-powered aircraft are not a problem, and the United States and the Soviet Union already had a record of nuclear-powered aircraft test flights when they were vying for hegemony. The miniaturization of nuclear power units is also not a problem, and the core components of nuclear reactors can already be as small as about 500 kg. The problem lies in the radiation protection of the nuclear reactor, and everyone knows that there will be no problem with installing tens of tons of cement protective armor for a nuclear power unit on the ground or on a ship, but adding dozens of tons of weight to an airplane out of thin air is a big problem.

It can be said that the lightening of the protective armor of nuclear power units is the only problem that plagues the real appearance of nuclear-powered aircraft, and nothing else is a problem, or it is not a big problem. The reason why there are no nuclear-powered aircraft at present also has a lot to do with the fact that the start-up and extinguishing of nuclear power units are relatively troublesome. The fact that it could not be started after a long time of stopping and that it could not be started made so that the civilian economy and the military rapid reaction capability of nuclear-powered aircraft under the current situation were not enough to convince people.

During the period of hegemony between the United States and the Soviet Union, both the United States and the Soviet Union experimented, but both failed.

Cause of failure: Failure to miniaturize a nuclear reactor without compromising its strength and power. These are the technical bottlenecks in the birth of nuclear-powered aircraft, and even the United States today cannot successfully miniaturize nuclear reactors. This is a world technology bottleneck.

The inability to miniaturize nuclear reactors has made the idea of a nuclear-powered aircraft come to naught. However, even if a nuclear reactor is successfully equipped, then it will seriously increase the cost of the fighter, limit the bomb load of the fighter, and the cost performance is not appropriate (an air tanker is only tens of millions, and a nuclear reactor will cost hundreds of millions!). Lao Mei won't even be able to settle this account, right?); And there's the danger of nuclear contamination, which can be deadly.

Therefore, when a technology is not very mature, it is easy to not be practical.

You know how much a reactor weighs. How big is your plane? Isn't this just a target? Poor mobility. And what to do if it is shot down and causes nuclear contamination.

There are many problems, one is the volume, the second is the danger, the third is the characteristics of the reactor itself, which requires stable power generation, and it is very difficult to regulate, and it is very difficult to change the power, which has too much impact on the maneuverability of the aircraft.

Even if it were built, I think the cost would be prohibitively high. If the plane is shot down, the amount of nuclear fuel with the aircraft's ** impulse will cause serious nuclear contamination. If there had been such aircraft in WWII, used in London and Midway (I mean if), the whole of Britain and the Pacific would have been wiped off the face of the earth long ago.

After World War II, the United States modified the B36 to test the compatibility of the nuclear power unit and the aircraft, but found that there were huge environmental risks that could not be overcome, so the technology was terminated.

Yes, it's under development, it's a secret.

Wouldn't it be better to use solar energy?

...What if you are volleyed by an enemy cannon **?

Nuclear power, a way to obtain a large amount of energy at almost no cost, would be the best of both worlds if it could be applied to airplanes. However, nuclear power is the enormous energy it can bring, and it is also accompanied by the problem of collecting, releasing and burying waste.

To use nuclear power in the first place, a nuclear power plant must be built, and the site of the nuclear power plant must be in a sparsely populated desert or near the ocean. This is because the current technology of using nuclear power is still only in the initial stage, and if it is not well controlled, it is very likely that it will misfire, and there will be a danger of nuclear leakage at any time. This is also the reason why nuclear power plants have not been widely used on a large scale.

If you want to build a nuclear power plant on an airplane, with current technology, there is a danger of nuclear leakage at any time. Even if the nuclear power plant is built, I believe that there will only be a handful of people who dare to do it on this plane.

However, when nuclear power technology matures, it is believed that this technology will also be used in aircraft.