Rocket-powered aircraft Rocket-powered aircraft Bachem Ba 349 Natter (Viper) was a WWII era German experimental rocket-powered interceptor aircraft which was to be employed in a very similar way as surface-to-air missiles. The pilot's primary mission was to aim the aircraft at its target bomber and fire its armament of rockets, with the majority of the flight to the bombers being radio controlled from the ground, and landing under a parachute. It is certainly one of the most unique weapons ever built. ...more on Wikipedia about "Bachem Ba 349"
The Bell X-1, originally XS-1 was the first aircraft to exceed the speed of sound in controlled, level flight. It was the first of the so called X-planes, a series of aircraft designated for testing of new technologies and usually kept highly secret. ...more on Wikipedia about "Bell X-1"
The Bell X-2 Starbuster was an American research aircraft built to investigate flight characteristics in the Mach 2-3 range. ...more on Wikipedia about "Bell X-2"
(DFS 194)
(DFS 228)
The Douglas Skyrocket (the D-558-2; also found, D-558-II) was a rocket-powered research aircraft built by the Douglas Aircraft Company for the U.S. Navy. With Scott Crossfield at the controls, the D-558-2 became the first airplane to fly twice the speed of sound. ...more on Wikipedia about "Douglas Skyrocket"
(Heinkel He 176)
The Lunar Landing Research Vehicle or LLRV was an Apollo Project era program to build a simulator for the Moon landing. The LLRVs, humorously referred to as flying bedsteads (see also Flying bedstead), were used by the FRC, now known as the NASA Dryden Flight Research Center, at Edwards Air Force Base, Calif., to study and analyze piloting techniques needed to fly and land the Apollo Lunar Module in the moon's low gravity environment. ...more on Wikipedia about "LLRV"
The Me 163 Komet was the only operational rocket fighter aircraft. It required a lengthy development process and entered the war in a very limited fashion only in 1944. ...more on Wikipedia about "Messerschmitt Me 163"
(Messerschmitt Me 263)
(Mikoyan-Gurevich I-270)
(Mitsubishi J8M)
(Mitsubishi Ki-202)
The North American X-15 rocket plane was perhaps the most important of the USAF/ USN X-series of experimental aircraft. Although not as famous as the Bell X-1, the X-15 set numerous speed and altitude records in the early 1960s, reaching the edge of space and bringing back valuable data that was used in the design of later aircraft and spacecraft. ...more on Wikipedia about "North American X-15"
(Opel RAK.1 (plane))
Operation Credible Sport was a United States military operation plan in late 1980 to rescue the hostages held on American soil in Iran using C-130 cargo planes modified with rocket engines. The Credible Sport operation was to follow the dramatic failure of Operation Eagle Claw in which a C-130 Hercules and a Sea Stallion helicopter collided in the Iranian desert, killing 8 servicemen. Credible Sport was abandoned after the election of Ronald Reagan as President in November, 1980. The Credible Sport plan called for highly modified C-130 Hercules cargo planes to land in a soccer stadium not far from the American Embassy in Teheran and airlift the hostages out. Three aircraft were modified under a top secret project at Eglin Air Force Base, Florida to YMC-130H configuration with rocket packages blistered onto the forward and aft fuselage, which theoretically enabled the planes to land and take off within the confines of the sports arena. During a demonstration at Duke Field, Eglin Auxiliary Field 3, on October 29, 1980, one of the modified Hercules fired its braking rockets a few seconds early. The aircraft suffered an extremely heavy landing, tearing off the starboard wing, setting off a fire, and resulting in the airframe, serial 74-1683, being written off. Despite this, the entire crew survived. This failure, coupled with the defeat of Jimmy Carter by Ronald Reagan in the presidential election on November 4, 1980, led to the cancellation of this rescue mission plan. The hostages were subsequently released concurrent with Reagan's inauguration in January 1981. The other two airframes, serials 74-1686 and 74-2065, were stripped of their rocket modifications and returned to regular airlift duties. In 1988 74-1686 was placed on display at the Robins Air Force Base museum, Georgia. As of 2005, 74-2065 is assigned to the 317th Airlift Group, 15th Expeditionary Mobility Task Force, at Dyess Air Force Base, Texas. == Trivia == * Footage of the crash landing at Duke Field has become publicly available in recent years, sourced from a United States Air Force briefing film. * Duke Field was the location for much of the filming of the "918th Bomb Group's" flightline and story action in the 1949 film Twelve O' Clock High starring Gregory Peck and Dean Jagger, who won an Academy Award for his performance. This airfield, which is not open to the public, has also been used by the Central Intelligence Agency for covert operations into the 1990s. ...more on Wikipedia about "Operation Credible Sport"
A rocket is a vehicle, missile or aircraft which obtains thrust by the reaction to the ejection of fast moving exhaust gas from within a rocket engine. Often the term rocket is also used to mean a rocket engine. ...more on Wikipedia about "Rocket"
A rocket-powered aircraft or rocket plane is an aircraft that uses a rocket for propulsion, sometimes in addition to jet engines. Rocket planes can achieve much higher speeds than similarly-sized jet aircraft, but for much shorter periods of operation, typically only a few minutes. Because of the expense and the various practical difficulties of operating rockets, these are poor choices for most aviation needs, and so are invariably specialised, mostly experimental, aircraft. ...more on Wikipedia about "Rocket-powered aircraft"
The Scaled Composites Model 316 SpaceShipOne is an experimental air-launched suborbital spaceplane that uses a hybrid rocket motor. The design features a unique " shuttlecock" reentry system whose half- delta wing folds upward at the center of its twin tail booms; this increases drag while remaining stable. ...more on Wikipedia about "Scaled Composites SpaceShipOne"
Silbervogel, German for Silverbird, was a design for a rocket-powered sub-orbital bomber aircraft produced by Eugen Sänger and Irene Bredt in the late 1930s. It is sometimes referred to as the Amerika Bomber, although it was only one of a number of designs considered for this mission. When Walter Dornberger attempted to create interest in military spaceplanes in the United States after World War II, he chose the more diplomatic term antipodal bomber. The design was a significant one, as it incorporated new rocket technology, and the principle of the lifting body. In the end, it was considered too complex and expensive to produce. The design never went beyond wind tunnel testing (pictured). ...more on Wikipedia about "Silverbird" Visit again http://www.shortopedia.com
: For other uses of the word Skylon, see Skylon (disambiguation) ...more on Wikipedia about "Skylon"
The X-20 Dyna-Soar ('Dynamic Soarer') was a United States Air Force (USAF) program to develop a spaceplane that could be used for a variety of military missions, including reconnaissance, bombing, space rescue, satellite maintenance, and sabotage of enemy satellites. The program ran from 24 October 1957– 10 December 1963, cost US$660 million and was canceled just after spacecraft construction had begun. ...more on Wikipedia about "X-20 Dyna-Soar"
The Republic XF-91 Thunderceptor was a mixed-propulsion interceptor using a jet engine for most flight, and a cluster of four small rocket engines for added thrust during climb and interception. The design was largely obsolete by the time it was completed due to the rapidly increasing performance of contemporary jet engines, and was built to the extent of two prototypes only. One of these was the first US fighter to exceed Mach 1 in level flight. ...more on Wikipedia about "XF-91 Thunderceptor"
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