A combined-cycle engine having at least one core engine and at least one ramjet engine. The ramjet utilizes a novel swirl generator for rapidly and efficiently atomizing, vaporizing, as necessary, and mixing a fuel into an oxidant. The swirl generator converts an oxidant flow into a turbulent, three-dimensional flowfield into which the fuel is introduced. The swirl generator effects a toroidal outer recirculation zone and an inner central recirculation zone, both of which are configured in a backward-flowing manner that carries heat and combustion byproducts upstream where they are employed to continuously ignite a combustible fuel / oxidizer mixture in adjacent shear layers, which accelerate flame propagation throughout the core flowfield. The swirl generator provides smooth combustion with no instabilities and minimum total pressure losses and enables significant reductions in the L / D ratio of the combustor. Other benefits include simplicity, reliability, wide flammability limits, high combustion efficiency and high specific thrust performance.