In the film, The Right Stuff, there was a scene where a pilot took a jet as
high as it could go by its momentum, then flamed out and lost the jet but
ejected successfully.
Was that based on a real event and if so how high did he go?
Ken
On Tue, Jul 26, 2022 at 12:54 PM Henry Spencer <hspencer@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
wrote:
On Tue, 26 Jul 2022, roxanna Mason wrote:
That F-104 used a HTP/JP-4 turbopump fed AR series rocket engine but
couldn't reach the von Karman limit, not enough duration.Only the X-15
was able to do that, which was a true rocket plane, no air breathing.
I suspect it's possible to pass the von Karman line with a zoom climb
using only airbreathing propulsion, which as a bonus would remain
officially an airplane (it can't be a suborbital rocket without being
"rocket-propelled in whole or in part"), but that's a real "science
project", not something you could confidently undertake with today's
engineering.
(Assuming optimistically that modified airbreathing engines are good for
acceleration to circa 100kft, after which they only produce enough thrust
to cancel remaining drag losses, if you're in a 60deg climb at that
altitude, then to top out at 100km, you need to be doing about Mach 4.8.
Which is well beyond orthodox turbojets, but possible for airbreathing...
in level flight. The trick is ending up in a 60deg climb at that speed.
You can't accelerate to maybe Mach 5 in level flight and then just pull up
using wing lift, because minimum turning radius at such speeds is pretty
large, and you run out of air for lift before you finish the pullup. And
you don't have much time to accelerate in the climb, because you pass
100kft pretty quickly. Maybe feasible eventually, but not today.)
Henry
