Was there ever a plane powered by a ramjet engine?
by 
Charles Varvaro
ANSWERS: 7
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The French Leduc 0.10 was a ramjet-powered plane that was first launched on April 21, 1949. I say it was "launched" because a ramjet cannot develop much thrust until it is already moving quite fast, so a ramjet-powered plane cannot take off from the ground by itself. It has to be launched from another airplane at high speed.
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There was a Leduc 022 ramjet powered aircraft that did take off under it's own power. That was in 1957. It completed many test flights. However it used a turbojet engine to start the ramjet while on the ground. For pictures and specifications of this unusual looking aircraft see www.aviationtrivia.homestead.com/L010.html
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In the mid-1950s, Hiller Aircraft Company produced the Hiller Hornet; an experminetal helicoptor that was powered by ramjets located on the tips of each main rotor blade. http://www.quad-a.org/Hall_of_Fame/personnel/hiller.htm
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Don't know if it is the Hiller helicopter, but a ram jet helicopter called the NHI H-3 was first flown in 1956.
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5-4-2017 Yes, it was called V-2. Some people called it "buzz bomb". I have heard one from about fifty feet away. It is a fearful sound.
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Jewels Vern Correction: V1 was the ramjet powered "buzz bomb". V2 was a ballistic missile powered by a liquid fueled rocket.
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The French Nord-Griffin 1958 had both turbojet and ramjet power. The SR-71A Blackbird's engines literally converted in-flight for turbojets to ramjets.
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There were actually two aircraft that used ramjet power: The French Nord-Griffen got up to ramjet speeds using an internal standard turbojet. That was then switched off and it's ramjet took over. The US super-secret spyplane. The SR-71A Blackbird was also in a specific way ramjet powered. It's Pratt & Whitney J-58 engines were unique in that they could actually shift cycle from using the compressor sections of its 2 engines would be shut down and ram air would be passed directly to the burner section thereby actually transforming the two P&W J-58 engines from turbojets to ramjets; actually scramjet.
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