James May on The Moon

[Eric Mc]

Great TV.

Put May on Virgin Galactic next.

[jmorgan]

Superb. I can recommend "Skunk Works" as a good read with the U2 in for a bit of a cracking read.

Clicky

Edited by jmorgan on Sunday 21st June 23:09

[Moose.]

Excellent programme and very well presented

A question about the U-2 though; what's its initial rate of climb? The internet is lacking this bit of info for some reason I'm guessing the Lightening still pips it

Edited by Moose. on Monday 22 June 10:02

[Eric Mc]

Some of the U2's capabilities are still classified so they don't tell us everything about it. I bet it has a higher ceiling than 70,000 feet too.

The Lighning had a rapid rate of climb for its day - but I reckon it would be outpaced by aircraft such as the F-15 and F-22 - which are much later technology.

Although the U-2 first flew in the mid 1950s, the versions in service today are much more recent - mid 80s. At one stage, the newer versions were given a different designation, the TR-1, but they reverted to a standard U-2 moniker in the 90s.

[derestrictor]

Eric, I'm being told by my chum Gandalf that Lightnings could hit in excess of 80,000 feet!

There's a place in SA which sells rides in these things; can you imagine?

[Eric Mc]

derestrictor said:

Eric, I'm being told by my chum Gandalf that Lightnings could hit in excess of 80,000 feet!

There's a place in SA which sells rides in these things; can you imagine?

They could, in a ballistic zoom climb - and the F-104N could hit 100,000 (it had a booster rocket in the tail). The SR-71 regularly cruised well above 70,000 (its true capabilities are also still classified).

The X-15 flew at up to 400,000 feet (nearly 70 miles).

[spitfire-ian]

Moose. said:

Excellent programme and very well presented

A question about the U-2 though; what's its initial rate of climb? The internet is lacking this bit of info for some reason I'm guessing the Lightening still pips it

Would have thought so, the Lightning's rate of climb was 50,000ft per minute!

Edited to add: The Lightning does indeed pip it by some margin!

The U2..

website said:

The aircraft has an initial climb rate of 15,000ft/min to around 25,000ft and then uses a lower climb rate to achieve an altitude of 70,000ft.

Source: http://www.airforce-technology.com/projects/u2/

Edited by spitfire-ian on Monday 22 June 10:28

[derestrictor]

Eric Mc said:

The X-15 flew at up to 400,000 feet (nearly 70 miles).

What???

[jmorgan]

Some pilots of the X15 gained astronaut wings.

Edit to add
http://www.dfrc.nasa.gov/Gallery/Movie/X-15/index....

Link to onboard movie
http://www.dfrc.nasa.gov/Gallery/Movie/X-15/640x/E...

Edit 2
forgot the obligatory piccies
http://www.dfrc.nasa.gov/Gallery/Photo/X-15/index....

Edited by jmorgan on Monday 22 June 10:41

[Moose.]

Eric Mc said:

The X-15 flew at up to 400,000 feet (nearly 70 miles).

[Eric Mc]

Yep - the three X-15 aircarft flew 199 flights between 1958 and the end of the programme in 1968. According to Wiki, the highest flight achieved was in July 1963 when Joe Walker took an X-15 to an altidude of 347,424 feet (63.5 miles).

The fastest X-15 flight was carried out by Pete Knight in October 1967 when he reached 4,519 mph (Mach 6.7). The aircraft was so badly damaged by aerodynamic heating that it never flew again.



One cool, but dangerous, aeroplane.

[Dunk76]

The X-15 isn't really an aeroplane though is it? More of a guided Air to Surface Missile.

Regards the Lightning, I'm pretty sure it had the legs on an F-15. The F-22 does have a higher rate of climb, as does one other - but I can't recall what... possibly the Typhoon?

I seem to recall a story about Lightning in a Ballistic Climb 'intercepting' a U-2 over Blighty.

[Eric Mc]

Dunk76 said:

The X-15 isn't really an aeroplane though is it? More of a guided Air to Surface Missile.

Regards the Lightning, I'm pretty sure it had the legs on an F-15. The F-22 does have a higher rate of climb, as does one other - but I can't recall what... possibly the Typhoon?

I seem to recall a story about Lightning in a Ballistic Climb 'intercepting' a U-2 over Blighty.

It flew aerodynamically (as opposed to ballistically) so it was a bona fide aeroplane. Its handling characteristics weren't an awful lot different to those of the F-104. That is why NASA and the USAF used the F-104 as a chase plane and converted one F-104 (the F-104N) with a booster rocket in the tail and with atitude thrusters in the nose and wingtips to give X-15 pilots some practice at using thrusters rather than conventional flight conmtrols for atitude control.

Yeager crashed the F-104 (famously portrayed in the film, "The Right Stuff").

[Gridl0k]

Mach 6.7 and 400K feet

70K feet looked impressive enough, really strained my ears when James asked if there was anyone higher to see if the pilot had any tells but he convincingly lied and said there were only ISS crew higher

[Eric Mc]

No, the U-2 pilot was correct.

The last X-15 flight was 41 years ago. The SR-71 was retired at the end of the 1990s.
The only current craft that take people higher than U-2s are Space Shuttles and Soyuz spacecraft - and the Space Shuttle is being retired next year.

Virgin Galactic intends to start X-15 type flights for paying passengers in the next few years.

[The Count]

Eric Mc said:

Taylor Aerocar

I love that, like a bird's egg on wheels.

Didn’t he say that you needed eight different licences and tests just to fly/drive it?

[Gridl0k]

Eric Mc said:

No, the U-2 pilot was correct.

No, the U-2 pilot was either lying or just uninformed.

I know the Blackbird (and X-15!) are both retired.

For a start, there's a fairly good chance at least one other U-2R was on a mission profile at the same time, which could have put him 15-30K feet higher.

Then there's the piggy-backing SSTO bird that flies/flew out of somewhere in the US (maybe even the illustrious Groom), and god knows what else they have "floating" about at ridiculous altitudes.

I mean, what are they replacing the shuttle with?

You can easily, of course, steer into 'conspiracy theory' stuff but fact is, there's people higher than they were.

[Nick_F]

Gridl0k said:

Eric Mc said:

No, the U-2 pilot was correct.

No, the U-2 pilot was either lying or just uninformed.

I know the Blackbird (and X-15!) are both retired.

For a start, there's a fairly good chance at least one other U-2R was on a mission profile at the same time, which could have put him 15-30K feet higher.

Then there's the piggy-backing SSTO bird that flies/flew out of somewhere in the US (maybe even the illustrious Groom), and god knows what else they have "floating" about at ridiculous altitudes.

I mean, what are they replacing the shuttle with?

You can easily, of course, steer into 'conspiracy theory' stuff but fact is, there's people higher than they were.

At that time? On that day? Do you even know on which date May flew?

Edited by Nick_F on Monday 22 June 14:51

[Gridl0k]

Nick_F said:

At that time? On that day? Do you even know on which date May flew?

No, but I know that you don't have a day where you don't have a U-2 on station just in case something interesting needs an overflight..

[Eric Mc]

Gridl0k said:

Eric Mc said:

No, the U-2 pilot was correct.

No, the U-2 pilot was either lying or just uninformed.

I know the Blackbird (and X-15!) are both retired.

For a start, there's a fairly good chance at least one other U-2R was on a mission profile at the same time, which could have put him 15-30K feet higher.

Then there's the piggy-backing SSTO bird that flies/flew out of somewhere in the US (maybe even the illustrious Groom), and god knows what else they have "floating" about at ridiculous altitudes.

I mean, what are they replacing the shuttle with?

You can easily, of course, steer into 'conspiracy theory' stuff but fact is, there's people higher than they were.

I'm not into "conspiracy stuff" either.

Who are these people and what are they in?
How do you "know"? Are you an employee of the US Dpartment of Defense or the CIA?

The Shuttle is being replaced by the Ares/Constellation spacecraft - which will fly in 2015 at the earliest - if at all.
The USAF have had precious little to do with the Space Shuttle since the Challenger accident and have relied on their unmanned satellites and U-2s since 1986 (and the SR-71 until withdrawn).

Items "floating about" at ridiculous altitudes are ridiculously easy to see - so it is highly unlikely that there is anything up there that we don't know about - even if we aren't sure of its true purpose.