MiG-29 on the edge of space.

BigBearKris

I know there are some true aviation fans on here.

Amazing video...

chrispy108

If I had £15,000 spare that's what I'd spend it on. Incredible. James May doing similar in a U2 is one of my favourite bits of TV ever.

hungrymark

Do you know what altitude he climbed to there? Great video. 

JezWynd

55,000 ft according to altimeter (@ 10:47)

Stevepage

And some people still believe the world is flat, mental.

ICBM

hungrymark said:

Do you know what altitude he climbed to there? Great video. 

55000ft.

Not really the edge of space, but about 50% higher than most commercial airliners. Concorde could reach that or more though.

But you get a much better view from a MiG-29 cockpit.

BigBearKris

hungrymark said:

Do you know what altitude he climbed to there? Great video. 

Yes. As above. Speed in knots, km/h and MACH shows at the bottom of the video, as well as altitude in feet and meters.

Chalky

chrispy108 said:

If I had £15,000 spare that's what I'd spend it on. Incredible. James May doing similar in a U2 is one of my favourite bits of TV ever.

So he went about 30% higher then.

ThorpyFX

Thanks for sharing that, I really enjoyed it!

littlegreenman

I'd have a right go of that given a chance. Me next please.

Sambostar

Stevepage said:

And some people still believe the world is flat, mental.

Depends on your perspective.

Emp_Fab

55,000ft isn't anywhere near "the edge of space" sorry !  Nice vid, but using the wide lens to exaggerate the Earth's curvature is cheating.

Myranda

Sambostar said:

Stevepage said:

And some people still believe the world is flat, mental.

Depends on your perspective.

I'd imagine that the flat earth types would say they see a flat circle - they'd still be idiots but then they believe the earth is flat despitedespite all the evidence. 

Babones

Check out those curves. Hubba hubba!

Cirrus

55,000 feet seems a bit of a cop out - Wouldn't be surprised if they don't do a proper zoom climb up to 80,000 feet+ just because they don't want to have to clean the vomit off the cockpit glass after *every* flight.

Still, really cool video!

english_bob

Cirrus said:

55,000 feet seems a bit of a cop out - Wouldn't be surprised if they don't do a proper zoom climb up to 80,000 feet+ just because they don't want to have to clean the vomit off the cockpit glass after *every* flight.

Still, really cool video!

55,000 feet is close to the maximum altitude a MiG 29 can fly at. If they don't go higher it's because they want to come back down in one piece. The U2 was designed to fly extremely high to exceed the range of enemy missiles and aircraft on reconnaissance flights. Didn't entirely work: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1960_U-2_incident

Chalky

Very much doubt the Mig29 could zoom climb to 80,000 ft and even if it tried, as the speed fell away it would lose stability and tumble - air density would make the stall speed very high.  Without the very low wing loading of the U2 or very high speed of the SR71, it would fly like a brick above 70,000ft, needing rocket augmented thrust propulsion and rocket thrust augmented controls to maintain controllability.

not_the_dj

I'll check my lads pack of Top Trumps...Ultimate Fighter jets later (a peerless source of aviation specifications)...but yeah pretty sure that's almost at the operational ceiling for a MiG 29

strtdv

For proper "edge of space" stuff, the X-15 (flown by, among others, Neil Armstrong), is hard to beat. The highest flights they recorded were over 350,000ft. So little air up there they had to use a Reaction Control System (catalysed hydrogen peroxide) to provide lateral thrust to steer it. You can go and see it in the National Air and Space Museum in D.C.

english_bob

not_the_dj said:

I'll check my lads pack of Top Trumps...Ultimate Fighter jets later (a peerless source of aviation specifications)...but yeah pretty sure that's almost at the operational ceiling for a MiG 29

I used that other peerless source of aviation specifications, Wikipedia. Apparently it had a little change left before it reached its operational ceiling, but 55,000ft is about the highest nice round figure.

Cirrus

I wouldn't be so sure it couldn't go higher - for example, the F-15 has a service ceiling around 65,000 feet. What's the maximum height it's achieved in a zoom climb? Doing a bit of research just now I've seen 103,000 feet mentioned. Even the old F4 Phantom got up to 98,500 feet despite a service ceiling of 60,000ft.

Remember that the service ceiling is just the max altitude an aircraft at a given weight can achieve a specified rate of climb - so if it's in level flight at a normal cruising speed, it's the height where it can achieve, say 100ft/ min without losing too much airspeed or having too high an angle of attack to avoid entering a stall.

There's nothing stopping a fighter jet like this from getting up to a high speed, then just pulling back on the stick with the throttles forward and just punching through the service ceiling with sheer speed, turning the kinetic energy of its forward travel into potential energy. Above a certain height there will be relatively little control because the control surfaces just won't have a lot of air to work with, and the engines might flame out and require re-starting, but that's a by-the-by. 

The problem the U2 had with "coffin corner" at high altitude was because of its shape - those big, glider like wings were wide enough that at high altitude a stall was only a few knots below cruising speed, and a few knots faster would make the edges of the wing encounter the shock wave coming off the nose of the plane - in the trans-sonic area all the rules of aerodynamics go out the window, and you can end up in a situation where you get control reversal, intense buffeting or total airframe failure. If you went too slow and stalled, by the time you recovered control your speed might have shot up too high. That was the danger there. the Mig-29, being designed as a supersonic fighter with swept wings. I'm not saying it wouldn't be basically an out of control brick at the top of a zoom climb, I just don't think it'd have the same problems as the U2 or even the SR-71 when it went outside its flight envelope.