A. Czysz; Mark J. Lewis, aerodynamicist at the University of Maryland, College Park, specialist of waveriders and airflows around leading edges and director of the NASA-sponsored Maryland Center for Hypersonic Education and Research; Dr. Robert Boyd of Lockheed Martin Skunk Works able to build real working prototypes with allocated budgets from black projects, whose contractor General Atomics is a world leader in superconducting magnets (that Ayaks uses); and Dr. Daniel Swallow from Textron Systems, one of the few firms still possessing expertise in magnetohydrodynamic converters, which Ayaks extensively uses. Novel technologies MHD bypass The Ayaks was projected to employ a novel engine using a magnetohydrodynamic generator to collect and slow down highly ionized and rarefied air upstream of airbreathing jet engines, usually scramjets, although HSRI project lead Vladimir L. Fraĭshtadt said in a 2001 interview that the Ayaks MHD bypass system could decelerate the incoming hypersonic airflow sufficiently to almost use conventional turbomachinery. This would be a surprising technical solution considering such hypersonic speeds, yet confirmed as feasible by independent studies using Mach 2.7 turbojets or even subsonic ramjets. The air is mixed with fuel into the mixture that burns in the combustor, while the electricity produced by the inlet MHD generator feeds the MHD accelerator located behind the jet engine near the single expansion ramp nozzle to provide additional thrust and specific impulse. The plasma funnel developed over the air inlet from the Lorentz forces greatly increases the ability of the engine to collect air, increasing the effective diameter of the air inlet up to hundreds of meters. It also extends the Mach regime and altitude the aircraft can cruise to. Thus, it is theorized that the Ayaks' engine can operate using atmospheric oxygen even at heights above . A non-equilibrium MHD generator typically produces 1–5 MWe with such parameters (channel cross-section, magnetic field strength, pressure, degree of ionization and velocity of the working fluid) but the increased effective diameter of the air inlet by the virtual plasma funnel greatly increases the power produced to 45–100 MWe per engine. As Ayaks may use two to four of such engines, some electrical energy could be diverted to peaceful or military directed-energy devices. Thermochemical reactors The fuel feed system of the Ayaks engine is also novel. At supersonic speeds, air brutally recompress downstream the stagnation point of a shock wave, producing heat. At hypersonic speeds, the heat flux from shock waves