Too bad they weren't fitted with the engines from the F-111F...


GK121, u r so right.


We evidently had the option, in the day (1969-71, I believe) because of the delivery delays, to change our F-111C order to the F-111F.


Unfortunately, due to Govt bureaucracy (and possibly for fear of further price increases), this was not taken up.


Big shame. We could have avoided our orphan AUP (based largely on F-111A/E AMP) and run with the F-111F Pacer Strike upgrade in 1995. 25k of poke per side, and the aircraft could easily have pressed on beyond 2010 (our withdrawal date). BTW, I think F-111F airtests went to M2.5.

I've done 1300ish mph with champers!! 😎Also done it up front too!

That would be exactly what happened to a US F4 in mid-60s. Following a tail slide, erect spin, TBC deployment, canopy jettison and twin ejection, the aircraft recovered and landed wheels up on the salt lake.

Of course I have... in a pointy jet thingy.

But most VC10 pilots have flown the pond (west to east) with a ground speed of well over 1000 mph... often 1000 kts

Faster than the Sun
 

A very worthwhile read is the book with the above name by Peter Twiss

Fairey Delta FD 2.......especially the problems they had of proving to the US that they had actually achieved it.......:ok:

I second the 1000 mph+ with a glass of Dom Perignon in my hand. The air correspondent for the Economist was in the next seat (as a reward for his magazine's diligent efforts to get the :mad: scrapped) and he remarked that it was better than working for a living. I toddled into our elegant Sarfoftheriver HQ at 1 pm, fresh as a newly minted daisy, and announced that I had had breakfast in Singapore.

On topic: I recall reading an immediately post-GW1 account of an F-111F claiming M=1.4 on egress from an objective whose residents were highly miffed and heavily armed.

Or in English 783 kts

sharpend wrote: Huh? Let's say M0.886 at FL390 and ISA+30. I make that a TAS of 542 knots, or 624 mph. So to crack 1000 mph groundspeed, you'd need a tailwind component of 327 knots, bluntie old chap.....:rolleyes:

I'm not sure where SAC is getting their data but the numbers I posted are from the respective pilot manuals:

TO 1F-15C-1 15 Jan 1982 Page 5-6 "Airspeed Limitation and Afterburner Operating Envelope.

NATOPS Flight Manual Navy Model F-14A Aircraft, 15 May 1995 page 4-7 Maximum Allowable Airspeeds.

Beags .Possibly sharpend was getting 1000 kilometres an hour transcribed in the old grey matter.

So far then, the 1000mph IAS seems to be unofficially claimed by some Tonka F3 mates, all outside RTS? Seems there is not an IAS record classification for aircraft? :hmm:

Clean jets are fun , but wasn't the J79 powered F4 actually able to go faster than most with external tanks on in the real world? ;)

OAP

Indeed PN, however seeing that this thread is about speeds in MPH, I put the the figures in that standard instead of Kts. I was writing the post while Fox3 was doing his one about Sageburner.

The FAI data sheet for the low level record in actually done in KPH.

Fai Record File

So what's the fastest groundspeed for a VC10? I understand it was just about the fastest subsonic airliner.

I crossed the pond 2 weeks ago in a 764 with some serious tailwind, ground speed was over 700mph according to the seatback liar thing.

It was a long trip back home last week against that tailwind!

1000mph - easy - I did it sitting in style, glass of champagne in hand, decent book to read, nice hostie.............

thank God the employer was paying............................... :):)

have we REALLY already forgotten about Concorde???

No, I just recall that a type of Sgt Fletcher wing tank had a very high RTS IAS limit? Or so they said!:eek:

OAP

MJ
Thanks. I see the classification is retired. Was the 3km course limited by a "not above" height?

OAP

RB199
 

When you look at what the F3 could do with only 16,000 ish thrust, it does very well.

Having spent some time rebuilding them and speaking to Rolls Royce, it would have been very easy to upgrade that to 18,000 at least. We did not buy that.
We bought more time on wing.

A better LP comp would have boosted dry power like the German MK 105 motors.

Flight of the Pheonix.
 

BEags

Yes, BB was indeed rumoured to have been involved as you say. :ok:

Sadly, for the Zoom Merchant it wasn't such a happy ending as he was in a significant position of responsibility at the time...

I'm guessing that the champagne riders were nowhere near Mother Earth when they got their 1000mph tick. :ok:

LJ

OK465, USAF did a trial, '60s I guess, to see the potential for incapacitating of very high speed pass over troops in the open with the Thud.

Apparently a low pass at 6 feet would do the buzz. I think at 6 feet there could have been lots of thuds if the troops hadn't ducked. Not so effective against Viet G ing.

Speaking of the Thud... somewhere in RAFG in the seventies, Spam on squadron exchange relates...
Running South in the weeds out of N. Vietnam, he hears "Thud crossing the xxxx river, what's your indicated?"
Replies "I'm doing a cool thousand..."
"OK I'm passing you on the right..." and it did.

As a 'champagne rider' I had a trip up to the cockpit (remember those days?). I was interested in the IAS as we were doing M2.02 at the time at FL600. I fully expected the old girl to have a fairly low Vne but was surprised to see that it was redlined at 530kts. I was quite impressed.

I had heard stories of the 'Thud' being brutally fast at low level when devoid of bombery appendages.

LJ - Of course we were at high altitude. It would have been criminal to spill the Dom.

OAP

Data sheet for Sageburner - Fai Record File

Data sheet for one of the Meteor record runs done in 1945 - Fai Record File

Both of those were done at sub 200 feet and are the same record class as the F-104. If memory serves until the late 1953 the absolute airspeed record had to be done at low level. thus the reason that the Hunter and Swift were able to break the record just before the rules were changed (the Hunter and Swift got the same record as Sageburner as well as the absolute airspeed record).

Beags, don't ruin a good story :) But I'm sure I saw that on the Carosel... And the tail wind was enormous

There was this incident:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2eoTqLnL0WI

And there was the older Unpleasantness at White Sands in Dec. 64 when the FAA, which was trying to diversify into building the US SST, invited media to its specially built "boomtown" to experience B-58 and F-104 booms and be convinced that the dreaded boom was no big deal.

The planned tests went well, but then someone had the bright idea of bringing a -104 past for a photo op at 500 feet. Being a -104 it came in a tidge hot and...

“A heavy ruby-glass ashtray flew off a desk and sprayed shards over the floor. Outside, both panes of a mock-up storefront were smashed, a glass window in a trailer caved in, and 16 out of 90 panes in a small greenhouse were shattered.” (That was Time's report.)

38 psf will do that...

I doubt most of the pax knew or cared what M2.0 was. The FL600 trip I had was an oddity as most of the time it used to flounder around at FL530-550 as it burned off fuel. I could have had at one time explained the tropodisaurian reason for this but I've forgotten and I can't remember why I've forgotten.

Rigchick-RB199.
Yes, more dry power would have been good, trouble is, the sfc is/was v.important at low altitude.:8 However, at 700+KIAS in any Tornado, I think you will find that the core engine is just an APU, almost all the thrust is from the pressure recovery in the inlet coupled with the afterburner. :ok:
However, the (almost) unbelievable thing is that Concorde (BS OLYMPUS 593) cruised at Mach 2.0 IN DRY POWER!:ok::ok:

OAP

It did indeed, although I have to say that the most impressive thing about any Concord flight (pedant mode/it's Concord, not Concorde/pedant mode off) was the reverse thrust on landing which was like hitting a brick wall. The rest of the flight was much like any other pax jet other than the fact you could see the curvy contours of the planet at altitude. And you were well lubricated with quality shampoo.

Sorry thing, your pedant mode is U/S. You can call it what you wish but, the contractual name was Concorde.:oh:

OAP

Concorde naming issue
 

From Concorde FAQ:
"at the roll-out of the first Concorde prototype at Toulouse in December, 1967, Tony Benn, MP, then British Minister of Technology, finally resolved what he described as the only disagreement with France that had occurred during the years of co-operation on the project. He had decided, he said, that the British "Concorde" should from now on also be written with an "e.""

Apologies to all, Lincoln and OAP are quite right. I knew it was spelled the 'wrong' way but got the wrong way wrong. If you follow me.

No snags thingy, probably caused by too much shampoo, you lucky... ...:D

OAP

Certainly too much shampoo at the moment as a cursory glance at Google would have set me straight before committing fingers to laptop. There's no fool like an old fool :)

Now if you're talking dry power super-cruise then the old F3 could do that as well - it had to be one of the new ones, without pylons and you needed to be at about 5,000ft if I recall correctly.

Don't get me wrong, you needed a crack of burner to get 'super' but then if you had a slippery jet then it could sustain 1.05M-1.1M.

Not as impressive as Concorde, but impressive all the same.

LJ

Apparently the white painted 2 seat Meteor in one of the Wonder Woman episodes could do it on one engine. Hmmn... Lynda Carter.

Said zoom buddy was actually a good guy but was unfortunate to have a number of high intensity whoopsies in a line.

Lessons to be learnt, not all aircrew have moral fortitude on a Friday night...

Which turned out to be quite ironic actually, as life often shows.

http://www.alternatewars.com/SAC/MIL..._SAC_Specs.pdf


SAC = STANDARD AIRCRAFT CHARACTERISTICS

Simply put, the SAC is the official US government statement of the flight characteristics of the aircraft, and is an official document of the respective services.

The SAC documents I linked above carry the following ID numbers:

F-8E SAC: NAVAIR 00-110AF8-5
F-14A SAC: NAVAIR 00-110AF14-2
F-14D SAC: NAVAIR 00-110AF14-2

All bear the comment "PUBLISHED BY DIRECTION OF THE COMMANDER OF THE NAVAL AIR SYSTEMS COMMAND"


F-15C SAC: AFG 2, Vol 1, Addn 61

And carries the comment "BY AUTHORITY OF THE SECRETARY OF THE AIR FORCE"

IIRC the secret to Concorde was a modest static engine pressure ratio. At cruising speed the OPR of the inlet/engine/exhaust system was high and it was very efficient without blowing up or melting the engine's hot end. The downside was that it was horrible at subsonic speed.

Concorde still holds the record for unrefuelled supersonic range, and by quite a big margin. Unless there is something we don't know about....

ExAdvert:
P*ssing myself. Best post I have read for a while.

:D