W/RB57F

reply to post by ajsr71


U-2C DEAD ENGINE GLIDE DISTANCE
Under Zero wind conditions, the airplane will glide about 34 nautical miles per 10,000 feet of altitude in the clean configuration with the engine inoperative.(windmilling or frozen)
Optimum glide distance is obtained by descending at speeds which provide the maximum lift-to-drag ratio(LTDR).

The speed for maximum LTDR(and therefore optimum glide speed) is a function of gross weight.

Glide distances will be reduced if any of these are selected
Gear is down
Speed brakes out
15 degrees of flap
gust position
slipper tanks fitted.

From 70,000 feet appox a 240 mile glide

The U-2R will have different glide characteristics because it's heavier than the U-2C. The 28:1 was directly from a pilot that I discussed the glide characteristics with.

reply to post by RB57FPILOT

As a former RB-57F and WB-57F Crew Chief and can with authority say the the plane did fly much higher than 80,000 ft and as the Crew Chief that launched WB-57F, tail number 292 on it's last flight, Mach Tuck is exactly what brought this airplane down with the lost of both crew members over New Mexico that day.

I was a personal eye witness to the plane breaking up and it took over 10 minutes for the plane to fall behind the Sandia Mountains and finally disappear from our site.

Tha is a long long way up for a plane to fall!


Sal

reply to post by meshuggah1324

The RB-57f, later designated WB-57F, was built by General Dynamics from older B-57 airframes from 1961 to 1063. The airplanes had 122 feet 5 inches of windspan and looked like a large overpowered glider. I had the good luck to fly this magnificant machine. They were stationed with the 58th Weather Reconnaissance Squardon, Kirtland AFB, New Mexico and Yokota AB, Japan. They were some other places but enough about that! The takeoff was spactacular with clime angles greater than 70 degrees. Sometimes more if you "hotdogged it" like SOME did. NASA still has two, I believe, that they fly during Space Shuttle launches

Input winds aloft into your calculation and the range increases/decreases dramatically. Especially if you consider that winds above FL 500 often exceed 100 knts.

After flying a computer simulator of an SR-71 and reaching over 100,000 ft by throttling the engines to idle in ashallow dive from 80,000+ to about 80,000 and climing out at a shallow angle. If I increased the throttle it slowed the plane down and limited the altitude. I happened to tell a B57F pilot this and he said yes they would shut the turbofans down and fly on the J-60s to over 100K

Did anyone else catch this from the Reinhardt blog?

[atsimg]http://files.abovetopsecret.com/images/member/840ed5146eff.jpg[/atsimg]

The Reinster commented on the antennae on the spine. First time I have seen this girl.

It is a NASA WB-57, that was on its way to Lajes

reply to post by Anonymous ATS


I have just returned from an Albuquerque FTROOP dinner where former RB-57F pilots / NAVS / Flight Surgeons, ec. discussed "F" operations. One of the flight surgeons helped recovered the crew remains after the Mach tuck accident you referenced.

A group discussion revealed that 73,000 was about the highested anyone ever flew the aircraft. I made it above 70,000 at the end of a mission over Panama in very cold atmospheric conditions. A Junior in aeronautical engineering can prove a high aspect wing in subsonic flight cannot go above 75,000 feet because the window between stall and mach tuck (Coffin corner) becomes too small.

With respect to overflight comments - no RB-57F, USAF U-2R, or SR-71 has ever overflown the USSR. High altitude overflights were terminated May 1, 1960 when Francis Gary Powers was shot down. The only USAF aircraft that made USSR overflights were three RB-57D aircraft on the same day in Dec 1956.



[edit on 15-12-2009 by RB57FPILOT]

[edit on 15-12-2009 by RB57FPILOT]

Sal, I, too, remember watching the RB-57F mach tuck event. I was on a office break
sitting on the front porch of the 42nd ARRS at Kirtland AFB, NM when it happened.
Still vivid in my mind is when we heard the muffled explosion and then watched the
debris and cloud fall from the sky. It did indeed take several minutes to fall from the sky.
Very shortly thereafter, the claxon horn went off and the rescue crew raced to board the
HH-43 Huskie and fly off in that direction. I knew both RB-57F crewmembers personally.
They had participated in my Boy Scout troop events a few years earlier. A couple of
commercial airliners at flight altitude called ATC to report the event as the
debris field scattered and dropped as they flew through the area at the same time.

Rich