I like their description of the Starfighter:
”Jet engine with cockpit attached”.
Pretty much.
When the DC-8 Went Supersonic
- Thread starter john_pifer
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”Jet engine with cockpit attached”.
Pretty much.
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Various nick names but I laughed reading they ( Canada ) called it the “ window maker” after breaking the windows at the new airport.
Luftwaffe lost lots of F104s and pilots.
I think they called it the “widow maker” or some other airforce.
Luftwaffe lost lots of F104s and pilots.
I think they called it the “widow maker” or some other airforce.
Not likely just look at the Vne speed listed. Ive heard a few crj aircraft have made it to the 410 club but thats its max altitude.
I've heard that in early versions of the F-104 the pilot ejected downward out the bottom of the aircraft. That meant that a minimum altitude was required to eject safely.
For certification reasons, modern aircraft must demonstrate the ability to manage speeds above the Maximum Mach Operating number. Our G600 is limited to 0.925 MMO. That means Gulfstream was able to demonstrate controlability to some speed to some calculated speed well above M0.925 but under Mach 1.
There is a new crop of Bizjets coming out with an MMO of M0.94. This requires a speed above Mach 1 to achieve certification.
The criteria is fairly significant and it's not just a 15 second jaunt to just over. There is gust load testing, stick pressure reversal testing, horizontal stab functionality and much more.
The Global 7500 went to Mach 1.015 to certify it to M0.94.
There is a new crop of Bizjets coming out with an MMO of M0.94. This requires a speed above Mach 1 to achieve certification.
The criteria is fairly significant and it's not just a 15 second jaunt to just over. There is gust load testing, stick pressure reversal testing, horizontal stab functionality and much more.
The Global 7500 went to Mach 1.015 to certify it to M0.94.
True but Mach 1.015 is objectively Transonic flight and Global did not achive Supersonic flight...
Transonic...
When an airplane is flying at transonic speed, part of the airplane is experiencing subsonic airflow and part is experiencing supersonic airflow. Over the top of the wing, probably about halfway back, the velocity of the air will reach Mach 1 and a shock wave will form. The shock wave forms 90 degrees to the airflow and is known as a normal shock wave. Stability problems can be encountered during transonic flight, because the shock wave can cause the airflow to separate from the wing. The shock wave also causes the center of lift to shift aft, causing the nose to pitch down. The speed at which the shock wave forms is known as the critical Mach number. Transonic speed is typically between Mach 0.80 and 1.20.
Supersonic...
When an airplane is flying at supersonic speed, the entire airplane is experiencing supersonic airflow. At this speed, the shock wave which formed on top of the wing during transonic flight has moved all the way aft and has attached itself to the wing trailing edge. Supersonic speed is from Mach 1.20 to 5.0. If an airplane flies faster than Mach 5, it is said to be in hypersonic flight.
You said this already.
Post in thread 'When the DC-8 Went Supersonic'
https://bobistheoilguy.com/forums/threads/when-the-dc-8-went-supersonic.358755/post-6212040
I think it was because of the risk of hitting the horizontal stabilizer mounted at the top of the tail with the ejection seats available at the time.
I read Tom Wolfe's The Right Stuff and I think there was something about one two-seat F-104 ejection where one guy ejected safely while the other guy didn't, and both ended up being the right choice because of what eventually happened. I think one guy would have been shot into the ground while the other was able to ride it out.
Wasn't that a great read? I've read The Right Stuff several times.
My big issue with the book is that Wolfe (or his sources) put the blame for the loss of Gus Grissom's Mercury capsule (due to the hatch blowing prematurely) on Gus.
The capsule (Liberty Bell 7) was recovered in 1999, and there was evidence of deformation of the hatch portal, likely due to a hard splashdown.
There's also evidence that there was a discharge of static electricity from the recovery helicopter to the capsule, with the hatch blowing immediately afterwards.
As this new evidence came out, Wolfe should have revised that chapter (The Unscrewable Pooch) accordingly.
I clearly understand your point, but even so, things happen at M 1.000
M 1.015 is above the speed of sound. The Global 7500 was going fast enough that no sound preceded it. And to the best of my knowledge, it generated a sonic boom. A sharp eye will notice the spoilers coming up at Mach 1. Right before the 1 minute mark, and the video cuts to another view...
Certainly M 1.02 will generate a sonic boom as shown in this video.
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MolaKule
Staff member
For example, CFR 14 part 23, etc., of the FAA rules state the various requirements for aircraft maneuvers and loading (23.301 and following):
https://www.govinfo.gov/content/pkg/CFR-2011-title14-vol1/pdf/CFR-2011-title14-vol1-part23.pdf
In the aircraft industry, structurally speaking, we design and test wing struts, wings and and other structures for about 1.5X Max Loading expected for each maneuver in the flight profile.
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I'll continue my rant -
It seemed as though two of Wolfe's primary sources were Chuck Yeager and Pete Conrad.
One bias in the book, carried forward and emphasized in the movie, was that NASA over looked the best pilots, like Yeager, in favour of test pilots with engineering degrees, who presented a better public image.
The movie presented the Mercury 7 as sort of goofy frat boys, with Von Braun and his V2 crew doing the heavy lifting in the background. John Glenn later said that he thought the movie seriously hurt his chances when he was seeking the Democratic nomination to run against President Reagan in '84. He said they should have called it "Laurel and Hardy go into space".
In fact, the Mercury 7 astronauts were all top-notch pilots, all with thousands of hours of flight time, several with combat experience, all with engineering degrees, and all unusually intelligent, with IQs between 130 and 146.
Conrad was not selected as one of the Mercury 7, and no doubt thought he should have been. He was selected as one of the "Next Nine" in 1962, and went on to fly in space four times, including being the 3rd man on the moon. In spite of that, it seemed to me that his resentment of the Mercury Seven got passed on to Tom Wolfe.
I remember the movie version, and it was far different and less detailed. They attributed a lot of things in the movie that Pete Conrad did to others. The book didn't really treat them as frat boys but serious individuals who liked to let loose sometimes. And most definitely neither version painted John Glenn as anything but the most serious.
John Glenn had a college education but he dropped out and didn't graduate until he was in the Mercury program. Chuck Yeager and other pilots without college educations weren't eligible to apply.
I do remember a HS classmate talking about going to a JC, getting an associates degree, entering the military through OCS, then finishing a bachelors degree on the GI bill. I don't think it really worked that way because they probably have way too many candidates who already have four year degrees. I get that maybe someone without a college degree can be a limited duty officer, but doesn't that require quite a bit of service time?
I was bit surprised Glenn was so put off by how he was portrayed in the movie, because I liked the values shown (he was shown as being loyal and faithful to his wife, a team player [supportive of Al Shepard even when he (Glenn) would have wanted to make the first flight], patriotic, and brave), but I suppose his ambitiousness and the goody-two-shoes thing also came across strongly as well.
The movie, though long, did its best to compress a long book into less than 3-1/2 hours.
A few years ago Wired magazine had a good article on the making of the movie.
I would think he would have thought that the movie and book made him out to be a prude. A Boy Scout. Someone who insisted in sticking to the rules. Especially how both made it sound like Glenn highly disapproved of the rest of the Mercury Seven cheating on their wives.
I didn't know about much of the movie, but I do remember something. The Cow Palace (south of San Francisco) was a stand-in for the Astrodome, and I specifically watching local news where they announced a call for extras for a crowd scene. I don't think they were paying anyone for it, but they probably had food. And they didn't really show much since an indoor arena was not quite the size of an indoor stadium.
I think you're right ... I remember reading, perhaps in Glenn's autobiography, that he felt that given the way LIFE magazine portrayed the early astronauts, public knowledge of the behaviour of some of them would have been disastrous for the space program.
I thought it was a valid argument, although there is (in my opinion) nothing wrong with disapproving of adultery whether or not it jeopardises a program's public image.
Interesting trivia about the Astrodome scene being filmed in the Cow Palace. That scene was interesting - the Mercury boys were being paraded by LBJ to Texas movers-and-shakers whilst being subjected to an aged exotic dancer, and juxtaposed with that, Yeager was trying to set an altitude record in an F-104 Starfighter.
In real life the two incidents occurred about 18 months apart, but the movie was driving home the point that the real pilots were out flying, not watching strippers in Texas.
But for all my criticism of the movie, I thought the flying scenes were very well done, and I loved Bill Conti's soundtrack combined with selections from Gustav Holst's The Planets. Also, the image of the Soviet booster slowly rising, superimposed on the gloating image of The Chief Designer, all rippled by heat waves and accompanied by ominous mandolin music, is absolutely brilliant.
Tom Wolfe painted a picture of several things. The whole thing about test pilots being in "single combat" against death. The press that wanted to know more than they were entitled. That many of the best test pilots were left behind when they weren't selected. That the families were always worried that their man wouldn't come back. That the Soviet Union was beating the US to the punch.
The Astrodome scene didn't really show much except closeups where one can't really see how big the site was.
The NF-104 scene was really bizarre in the movie. It was a scheduled test and it's not like Yeager decided to take it out on a joyride just for the heck of it. They also didn't modify the F-104 they used with a least a mockup of the supplemental engine. But the whole thing about the flat spin did happen and apparently someone found Yeager on the side of the road.
The Mercury Seven wanted to be thought of as pilots. They asked for NASA to get them aircraft so they could keep up their flying proficiency and I believe they ended up with a few surplus F-100. And there were those ballistic flights to simulate weightlessness, where a few wanted to prove that they could pilot it like that, although they couldn't do it properly. It probably would have taken some practice to get it down.
It might have achieved M1 Transonic fight but objectively we have no recorded boom evidence it broke the sonic barrier and achieved Supersonic flight where all the air flow around the aircraft / SSC was faster than the speed of sound...
This Science of Flight video will increase your knowledge of sonic booms and the difference between Transonic flight and Supersonic flight...
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The germans called it Erdnägel, which means "tent peg" in english.
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