Time-to-climb record attempt - F-22A Raptor

It would be interesting to see the possibility of the USAF
silencing time-to-climb records for awhile with the F-22A.
They did this back in 1975 with the F-15 Streak Eagle during
the height of the Cold War. Those records are still extremely
impressive, like hitting 12,000 meters in 55.542 seconds!
That's just under 40,000 feet of altitude from a dead stand
still at the end of a runway to 40,000 feet in just under a minute.
I still think the USAF attempts were more genuine attempts
than the Russian ones, since the Streak Eagle was very close
to a regular production F-15, save 1,800 LBS of weight. At anyrate,
the F-22A should produce some very interesting results, assuming
the USAF would find it acceptable to divulge a lot of its raw aero-
dynamic performance in the attempt. If this were to ever happen,
it would be interesting to see what profile the aircraft would need to
fly to trade speed for altitude in comparision with the F-15A used in
the time-to-climb attempts back in 1975....

Umm, I think the latest record was set by Thunder City in December using one of their Lightnings....

Andy

I'd sure like to see it happen! Of course, I think there are some civvie owned jets in the US that could break the Streak Eagle record....

I don't think the USAF is/will be interested in "officially" breaking the time-to-climb record with the F-22 anytime soon. To do so, would reveal performance capabilities.

I can say that everybody involved in the program is very confident that if they WANT the offical record to be broken, the Raptor is more than capable of it in it's current configuration.

Scorpion1alpha wrote:I don't think the USAF is/will be interested in "officially" breaking the time-to-climb record with the F-22 anytime soon. To do so, would reveal performance capabilities.

I can say that everybody involved in the program is very confident that if they WANT the official record to be broken, the Raptor is more than capable of it in it's current configuration.

The Streak Eagle was a heavily modified bird. Everything not critical for that flight was removed for weight. Given the Eagle was designed for 2.5M, I doubt the Raptor has that much of an edge on it performance-wise. To beat the record, I suspect they would have to similarly strip a Raptor

Roscoe wrote:

Scorpion1alpha wrote:I don't think the USAF is/will be interested in "officially" breaking the time-to-climb record with the F-22 anytime soon. To do so, would reveal performance capabilities.

I can say that everybody involved in the program is very confident that if they WANT the official record to be broken, the Raptor is more than capable of it in it's current configuration.

The Streak Eagle was a heavily modified bird. Everything not critical for that flight was removed for weight. Given the Eagle was designed for 2.5M, I doubt the Raptor has that much of an edge on it performance-wise. To beat the record, I suspect they would have to similarly strip a Raptor

Why wouldn't the F-22 have a big performance edge vs. the Eagle or even the Streak Eagle? Its thrust to weight ratio with a full combat (internal) load and full fuel is probably higher than the Streak Eagle's to begin with. If you take away half the fuel and all internal weapons, it would no doubt be significantly higher than the Streak Eagle's. And while I don't know what the F-22's aerodynamic performance is like relative to the Eagle's, I think it would be safe to say it's better. It's a seriously slick-looking design. The only thing that might work against it a bit is its super-large wing area. That might result in approximately equal total drag compared to the F-15A/C. I would bet money that its drag coefficient throughout the AoA range is lower than the F-15's though. But the F-15's wing area is only 605 sq. ft. compared to the F-22's 840 sq. ft.

[Streak Eagle]

the empty weight on record attempt for 30,000 meter flight
was about 25,200 LBS.

fuel carried on attempt was about 7,300 LBS

static sea level thrust was about 47,660 LBS even though
the aircraft was not exactly at sea level....

thrust to weight ratio at engine startup was about 1.46-to-1

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

[F-15C Eagle]

this is a regular, frontline, operationally ready aircraft, but with
a twist, the twist being the installation/modification of two Pratt
and Whitney F100-PW-229 afterburning turbofan engines

empty weight about 28,000 LBS

fuel carried on attempt 7,300 LBS, same as Streak Eagle

static sea level thrust about 58,200 LBS

thrust to weight ratio at engine startup about 1.65-to-1

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

OK, the above is just an illustration, but an interesting one. The F-15
STILL has a lot of potential for world class time-to-climb record attempt
making. I have read that a production F-22A weighs just under 33,000 LBS
empty and has up to 78,000 LBS of static sea level thrust....if this is true,
you do the math. The F-22A should climb like a rocket when lightly loaded
with those figures. I also read about, not sure if this is true of course, that
the YF-22 and YF-23 were able to climb straight up in 90 degree climbs to
100,000 feet, again, I am not 100% sure about that. Has anyone heard
anything on this? That is NOT from a classified source by any means, but
from one of my aviation books lying around my house.

It makes sense, Newton says F=ma. That means these things (for at least a while) will be able to accelerate while standing on their @sses. This will continue until the planes either get to where the drag stops their acceleration (asymptotically approached) or the engines run out of steam. Now, the drag will constantly drop as you go up (the density drops) so you'll be accelerating (slowly, but still accelerating) all the way up, theoretically... I love dealing in theory, it makes me happy in my nice aerospace engineering world. Unfortunately, this means I'm dead wrong. The warm fuzzies are gone now. Your mach number would constantly increase as you rose though, that I know. The problem with figuring out if it could or not, is how the thrust, drag, and weight vary with altitude. We don't and never will know the Cd of the Raptor. The weight, well you're burning fuel, the plane is cool, but I'm not thinking I need to break out my orbital mechanics notes just yet for it. The thrust is heavily dependent on what regime you're flying in. I would love to see a vertical oblique shock coming off the Raptor . That would just be awesome, but I don't know if it would be able to break the sound barrier going vertical. Remember, as TC will tell you, public and classified records vary greatly. I'm sure we've got faster time to climb records (somewhere) and altitude records *cough*SR-71*cough*. We'll probably never know what they are (or maybe in 40 years). Anyway, if there's a plane right now that can beat that record, its the Raptor.

F100-PW-229 is much heavier than F100-PW-220, so if F-15C equip this engine, its empty weight should be arised from 28,600 Ibs now to near 30,000 Ib at least.

F100-PW-229 has much more A/B thrust than F100-PW-220, but their SFC is similar, which means that F100-PW-229 needs more fuel consumption than F100-PW-220 when both of them open their A/Bs.

Therefore, if you want F-15C with F100-PW-229 to do the thing that streak Eagle did before, its take-off weight should be near 40,000 Ib class theoretically.............

The time-to-climb records for fighter are mainly preserved by Russian Su-27 P-42 and MIG-31 now.

Before the P-42 broke the record that the Streak Eagle had set, USSR had removed all unnecessary equipments for take-off, climbing, and landing from P-42, and modified its engines to provide 10% more maximal thrust. Therefore, when the P-42 took-off to achieve its record, its empty weight is between 12 to 16 ton class, and its T/W ratio is near 2:1....................

I think USAF today really has no interest, and money, to play such a boring and meaningless game on Raptor................

Streak Eagle still owns at least one of its records, but yes, Toan is correct. The Flanker did break several of Streak Eagle's records, also utilizing some lighter, non-standard equipment, on top of the extra removed weight.

The AF does have the money to make another attempt at the record, but neither they, nor LM have as of yet expressed interest in breaking any of the existing time-to-climb records. Best bet would be to strip down one of the test birds. That way, the operational mission isn't affected.

I have no doubt that the Raptor could do it, but just as Toan said, I'm not sure if the interest is really there. All the money that can be saved in this day and age would be a good thing.

Beers and MiGs were made to be pounded!

New Time-to-Altitude Record for Thunder City

Two new South African records have been set by one of Thunder City’s English Electric Lightnings, registration ZU-BEX. The first record achieved by Thunder City test pilot Dave Stock and Steve Quirk was 70 seconds from a standing start to an altitude of 6000m (just over 19 000ft). This was performed at the Overberg air show near Bredasdorp.

A week later Dave Stock and well known British businessman John Caudwell set another record; this time from a standing start to 9,000m (just over 29,000 ft) at the Ysterplaats air show in Cape Town. Despite being robbed of considerable power when one of the afterburners went out early in the attempt, the Lightning nevertheless reached the 6 km high target in 102 seconds after releasing its brakes.

Long live 1960's technology

Wonder if we could strip down a Typhoon and give it a crack lol!

Andy

Toan, I agree with you on all points. The F100 class motor is listed as
weighing in at 3,740 lb (1,681 kg). I am not sure of the exact weight of
the -299 motor compared to a 220 motor, I can't imagine it being more
than 700 LBS heavier, but I could be wrong. The F-15C with -229 engines
would need more gas for an attempt at breaking or at least getting on par
with the Streak Eagle, not the P-42 from the FSU. Hypothetically, it may
need 10,000 LBS of internal fuel to make a worthy attempt, flying a similar
flight profile as Streak Eagle.

[F-15C]

28,600 empty(standard) with -229 motors say 30,000 LBS with
10,000 LBS of internal fuel would be an engine startup weight of
40,000 LBS

Thrust with the -229 would be about 58,200 LBS at static sea level

Thrust-to-weight ratio at engine startup would be about 1.455-to-1

Hmmmm, that's almost identical with Streak Eagle, which I estimated
at 1.46-to-1. This is very significant, since the standard F-15C is al-
most aerodynamically IDENTICAL to Streak Eagle, has literally almost
the same thrust-to-weight ratio(very close), but would be a fully oper-
ational machine....

I definitely agree with you guys concerning the possibility
of a time-to-climb attempt.....I don't think the USAF will pur-
sue it, at least not within the public realm. I am sure that LM
and/or the USAF has taken the F-22 to its limits in flight testing
to really expand the flight envelope, which with, published figures
on the aircraft's specs would be extraordinary to be sure. But
who knows, they may just do it! Admitedly, it would not be a walk
in the park to beat the P-42's records concerning time-to-climb, not
even in an F-22.

A civilian F-104 still holds the low alt speed record, since 1977 by the way.

988.26 mph by a civilian, in a civilian aircraft. And if the “French” hadn’t screwed up with their equipment, he was averaging over 1,000 mph when their “stuff” broke. So later and with warmer temps, a civilian comes back and rips the old F-4 military record into shreds

Go Darryl!!!