Patent ID: 8292217

Claim:
An inlet assembly for an airbreathing propulsion system, comprising: a pair of inlets comprising separate apertures defined by an upper surface leading edge, a lower surface leading edge, and a centerbody disposed between the inlets, wherein the centerbody is at least partially shaped to conform to a plurality of streamline-traces of a design flowfield downstream from the apertures, wherein at least one of the pair of inlets comprises: a low speed inlet flap configured to selectively open and close a low speed diffuser duct connected to a turbojet engine, wherein the low speed inlet flap rotates outwardly from the centerbody, from a first inboard position in which the low speed inlet flap closes the low speed diffuser duct, to a second outboard position in which the low speed inlet flap opens the low speed diffuser duct; a high speed inlet flap positioned along an outboard edge and configured to selectively deflect toward the centerbody to control airflow entering a high-speed diffuser duct connected to a dual mode ramjet/scramjet engine.