In the sci-fi novel Aelita (1923), two Russians travel to Mars in a pulse detonation rocket utilizing "a fine powder of unusual explosive force" (p. 19).
In the drama television series JAG, the Season Nine episode "The One That Got Away" (original air date October 17, 2003) features the Aurora — which, in the show is a super-secret hypersonicaircraft under development by the CIA, that uses a pulse-detonation engine.
In the movie Stealth (2005), the advanced fighters use pulse-detonation engines with scramjet boosters.
The PDE has been used as a story point in a number of modern novels such as Dan Brown's thriller, Deception Point (the second page of the book states that all technologies in the story are non-fictional and exist, albeit without referencing any sources), and Victor Koman's science fiction polemic, Kings of the High Frontier.
In X-COM, the Interceptor is equipped with a PDE, however even this huge propulsion force is inferior compared to the alien Gravity Wave Engines.
