In another thread Barnstormer1968 wrote that he had never been in the services - yet he kindly urges us on to create more Lightning legends...
Hmmmmmm. Finishes the thread eh?
Lightning and F15 photo thread!
(Two Lightning F1As intercept a U-2, caption to a painting by Michael Turner)
So let's keep going to resolve some of these altitude claims –
Post #65 by Dave Roome has considerable substance with location, speeds and fuel insights. Whereas the posts by Firestreak (#42) & Hale (#16) flying UK based F3s to the stratosphere are at this stage legends; they lack any detail of supersonic flight route, speeds and fuel insights or indeed technique.
A retired USMC aviator who flew the F4 & USMC Harrier amongst his many types emailed me last night ...
Hi, What IAS did he (Roome et al) have at 87,800 ft.? In the F4 it was a 45 degree climb from about 40,000 ft. at Mach 2 or a little faster till the nose started falling through...Burners blew out around 66,000 ft...We wore full pressure suits and would get to around 80,000 ft. having to zero G it over the top at 5 units AOA...
The world record the F4 held was for 98,000+ ft. and my old F4 squadron CO held the record. He was in full AB with a carrier holdback fitting keeping him from moving. When he got down to the proper fuel weight they fired the holdback and off he went. They were up at Dow AFB in Maine in the winter with the outside air temp around minus 20 deg F...
Lots of fiddling is done to set world records!... Semper Fi