Talk:Supercruise

message: Did this aircraft EVER supercruise?  It seems to be very similar to the Avro Arrow...  From what little i can find, the aircraft had 1 or 2 tesflights before being shelved.
Mig 1.44 and Su-47 are designed for a supercruise using AL-41F engines. Mig 1.44 definitely did not have time to test supercruise during its two flights. Su-47 had much more flights, but information about its the results is limited. Single build prototype Su-47 was equipped with D30F6 engines, the same as on the MiG-31 which has no supercruise ability. Certainly, none of them flew supersonically on military thrust.Lorethan (talk) 20:34, 21 December 2018 (UTC)
thread_title:  MiG 1.44 dispute... 

message: I was a bit baffled about the revert of my edit yesterday which added detail of the TU-144's supercruising capabilities. There was no detail anywhere about why it was reverted, so I have put it back. It was all accurate and correct, and any extra detail is clearly a good thing. If anyone wants to tell me what was wrong then please say so here. The edit was coupled with the addition of another aircraft to the list which admittedly was wrong, as i'd confused myself but the rest was good, so the good Tupolev stuff I have put back. Please do point out what is wrong with it if there is a problem. Thanks, vwozone 19:01, 23 January 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: I'm a bit baffled too, since your user name has not made any edits to the article for at least the last month. If you were not signed in, it might be helpful if you told us the IP address you were on. I think I can figure it out in this case, but it might be harder in cases where there are more than one revert on a given day. - BillCJ 21:53, 23 January 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Tu-144 detail 

message: MiG-31 should also be mentioned in that section, because it was designed to supercruise (e.g. cover large distances in relatively long time) with afterburners at Mach 2.35 with 4 semi-recessed R-33 missiles under it's body and it can cover some 700 km on this speed.
I'll provide sources if needed.  —Preceding unsigned comment added by 89.216.142.96 (talk) 16:39, 5 August 2010 (UTC)
replies: text: Supercruise means without afterburners so, although it's good at high speed cruise, it's not a super cruiser. Flanker235 (talk) 22:56, 30 September 2017 (UTC)
replies: text: Agree with your points but would you mind signing your posts please? Flanker235 (talk) 01:10, 20 April 2018 (UTC)
thread_title:  MiG-31 in the 'Aircraft designed to cruise on afterburner' 

message: I saw recently that this aircraft was removed from the list.  There was a series on aircraft (I believe it aired on the History Channel but I could be mistaken) that featured the Swedish Airforce.  I do recall the narrator announcing that the J-35 could cruise at mach 1.2 without using afterburner but I have been unable to find the video again.  I believe the video was on Youtube for a period but then removed (most likely for copyright violation).  If anyone else saw this video or has another source for the Draken it would be appreciated. -Nem1yan (talk) 02:16, 7 March 2011 (UTC)
replies: text: I don't doubt that. Any decent source for this? ––Nikolas Ojala (talk) 12:12, 24 March 2018 (UTC)

text: Random googling came up with these numbers for the engine. J35D had "RM6C, which was a copy of the substantially uprated Rolls Royce Avon 300 "big bore" engine, fitted with the Swedish EBK 66 afterburner. The RM6C could provide 56.4 kN (5,750 kgp / 12,700 lbf) dry thrust, and 76.8 kN (7,830 kgp / 17,260 lbf) afterburning thrust." So, if Cd was unchanged and the thing is good for 1340 mph wet, then dry it would be 1148 mph . Now that seems too good to be true, perhaps the source for thrust figures is wrong. Greglocock (talk) 05:51, 15 December 2018 (UTC)

text: I prefer your analysis to mine! But how do i reconcile 56.4 kN of thrust (my figure) with 10 kN (your figure)? oh, sign your posts! Greglocock (talk) 22:36, 15 December 2018 (UTC)
replies: text: Dry thrust to empty weight ratio is virtually identical for the two. Greglocock (talk) 23:06, 15 December 2018 (UTC)

text: "I doubt that Saab 35 has 2 times less resistance than EEL" So do I, but I don't know, and haven't found a ref that says either way. Adding the requirement for missiles probably knocks out the Lightning, and Concorde, as well. Greglocock (talk) 19:47, 16 December 2018 (UTC)

text: Jeez are you ever going to sign your posts? I looked in the flight manual at http://www.avialogs.com/index.php/en/aircraft/sweden/saab/j-35draken/hflv-685-121-flight-manual-f-rf-tf-35-draken.html#download and for a clean a/c at military power the maximum speed is M0.97 at 23000 ft roughly. That's on page 590 labelled as 10-41.  So whatever the prototype might have managed whatever variant the manual is written for was not expected to supercruise. Of course this is WP:OR Greglocock (talk) 00:17, 17 December 2018 (UTC)
thread_title:  Saab Draken 

message: It need to tell something about these mach 3 planes
: Neither of these aircraft can supercruise. The MiG-31 can sustain high Mach flight but not without afterburners. Please sign your posts. Flanker235 (talk) 11:21, 6 October 2017 (UTC)
thread_title:  MIG-25 and MIG-31 ? 

message: Most of the statements in this section are incorrect.
1. "using afterburners with air that was diverted past the turbojet core of the engine". No air entering the J58 afterburner bypassed the core. 80% was turbine exhaust. About 13% was cooling air from the 4th compessor stage and 7% was also from the 4th stage but used, together with the turbine exhaust, for combustion. So, a turbojet with afterburning.
2. "did not radically modify the intake/exhaust geometry in order to achieve Mach 3 flight". The XJ93 intake was a Mach 3 'multi stage' air compressor so had to have all the same features as that for the J58. They were just different shapes. The exhaust was, just like that on the J58, a Mach 3 expander with the same pumping requirement for secondary air. Hence, both ejector nozzles with similat expansion ratios.
I will correct with credible refs.  — Preceding unsigned comment added by Pieter1963 (talk • contribs) 18:41, 25 March 2014 (UTC)
thread_title: Aircraft designed to cruise on afterburner

message: :"The Lightning entry is ripe for some qualifying words." - well the prototype P.1s weren't fitted with re-heated engines and they all exceeded Mach 1 quite comfortably, Beamont even doing so when in the climb. How much more obvious does that need to be. BTW, here's some video of Lightnings making transonic low passes at an airshow back in 1987 just in case you've never seen aircraft flying at around Mach 0.95 - 0.99 (from around 4:19) without using reheat:  - the visible shockwaves are from the thickest part of the wing and from the canopy.  — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2.31.130.124 (talk) 16:36, 13 May 2015 (UTC)
replies: text: "On the performance side it is interesting to note that the Lightning has genuine supersonic performance capability in unreheated thrust, with stabilized level performance at the tropopause in the neighbourhood of Mach 1.2, the precise value depending on the temperature of the day ..." (the Lightning) " ... is still the only operational aircraft with this capability." - Roland Beamont in a 1963 Flight article here:   — Preceding unsigned comment added by 95.148.221.26 (talk) 19:05, 9 June 2015 (UTC)
replies: text:  .. and here in a 1959 article it states that with a full load a Lighting maintains Mach 2 at a minimum reheat setting, i.e., with the lowest amount of reheat it's possible to demand;   — Preceding unsigned comment added by 95.148.221.26 (talk) 20:08, 9 June 2015 (UTC)

text: "Transition from subsonic to supersonic flight can be achieved in maximum cold thrust from sea level to 45,000 feet, and up to 52,000 feet in reheat" - Pilot's Notes - Lightning F. Mk 1 & F. Mk 1A - 1962. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 95.149.173.74 (talk) 14:09, 23 May 2016 (UTC)
thread_title: English Electric Lightning

message: "The key challenge in attaining supercruise... is a radical redesign of the engine because the air entering a jet engine must always travel at subsonic speeds, regardless of aircraft speed"
The air always travels into the engine at subsonic speed so it doesn't have to be redesigned to make that happen for the special case of supercruise.
It's misleading to call the design changes in the mentioned engines "radical" as they are changes which have been going on for years to give lower weight/higher specific thrust/optimum bypass ratio. I think the only 'radical' features which have helped enable supercruise in todays engines are the vectored propelling nozzle and the diverterless intake.
"Otherwise compressibility waves (or shock waves) will create uncontrollable vibrations among the compressor vanes"
Shock waves in the intake come nowhere near the compressor because all intakes have a subsonic part in front of the compressor. On the SR-71, for example, the closest they came was about 115 inches.
"uncontrollable vibrations among the compressor vanes" are not caused by shockwaves but by distortion in the subsonic airflow entering the compressor or by very high air temperatures, in which case the blades are operating in a stalled condition. (J-58 redesigned to avoid this)
"Engine inlet design therefore can effectively limit the speed of the aircraft, regardless of thrust"
Inlet design is about making sure the incoming flight-speed air slows down in a way that gives the highest pressure possible to the engine and with acceptable distortion. This is not "regardless of the thrust" since the engine thrust is determined by the pressure and the distortion that the intake gives it. 
"The SR-71 Blackbird's distinctive nosecone is designed to funnel air around the J-58 engine for that very reason"
The nose cone is not designed to funnel air around the engine. The nosecone is designed to give the external (ie deflects flow into itself) and internal air passage the correct converging shape (area ratio)to make it into a supersonic compressor. A similar converging area ratio was required on the XB-70 as it was also a Mach 3 compressor. It used flat plates instead of cones.
Air is "funneled" around the engine because the intake is letting more air in at the front than the engine will accept, not to make sure it's subsonic or to stop blade vibrations. The air is passed around the engine by virtue of its pressure where it goes in (cowl boundary layer bleed slot/shock trap bleed)and the pumping action of the propelling (ejector) nozzle. Pieter1963 (talk) 01:30, 25 February 2015 (UTC)
thread_title: reasons for deletion of paragraph in article

message: If any one thinks the presumed intent of the deleted topics has a place in this article I will suitably reword with cites.
"using afterburners with air that was diverted past the turbojet core of the engine"
The falsehood in this statement, popular with enthusiasts (it's appeared/been deleted before in this article), can be easily seen by looking on-line at the SR-71 Flight Manual, fig. 1-11. It shows 80% of what went into the afterburner was turbine exhaust and 20% was bleed air from the compressor.
"made use of specially designed turbojets"
No cite. No value to the reader. That they were specially designed is a foregone conclusion, but how was it done?
"Unlike the J-58 engines powering the SR-71, the YJ-93 engines of the XB-70A did not radically modify the intake/exhaust geometry in order to achieve Mach 3 flight"
Unfortunately the cite, the Jenkins/Landis book, stops short of explaining the intake, engine or propelling nozzle. I don't think that was because they weren't 'radical' enough.
That something doesn't ring true with the 'did not radically modify' statement(apart from no cite) is apparent when we recognize that they both had to obey the same laws of physics (or more specifically aerothermodynamics). They used the same air, taking it in at the same speed and delivering it to the engine at the same speed and with the same low pressure loss and distortion. They both took in more air than required by the engine for the same reason and bypassed it to the propelling nozzle for the same reason. The propelling nozzles had to expand the same combination of engine exhaust and bypass air through the same pressure ratio. They both had to work everywhere between take off and cruise. They had to do all the same things but used different shaped parts so they looked different.
"the engines were specifically designed to be very efficient in afterburner"  Again this statement is not cited , a personal viewpoint, presumably insightful to the writer, which conveys no meaning to the reader. How is an engine specifically designed to....etc?Pieter1963 (talk) 00:01, 3 March 2015 (UTC)
thread_title: reasons for deleting statements in article 2

message: Hello fellow Wikipedians,
I have just modified  on Supercruise. Please take a moment to review my edit. If you have any questions, or need the bot to ignore the links, or the page altogether, please visit this simple FaQ for additional information. I made the following changes:
*Corrected formatting/usage for http://www.eurofighter.at/austria/td_lu.asp
When you have finished reviewing my changes, please set the checked parameter below to true or failed to let others know (documentation at ).
Cheers.—cyberbot IITalk to my owner:Online 17:10, 4 April 2016 (UTC)
thread_title:  External links modified 

message: I am very pleased to have access to the flight manual supplement, which reveals the rather astonishing fuel consumption of the XB 70 at M3
http://www.avialogs.com/index.php/en/aircraft/usa/northamericanaviation/xb-70/to-1b-70xa-1a-flight-handbook-supplement-xb-70a.html
If you look at the high speed charts at 75000 ft, at a constant weight, the fuel consumption per nm actually decreases with increasing speed.Greglocock (talk) 10:48, 31 August 2016 (UTC)
thread_title:  XB-70 

message: I see in comedy corner (future proposed aircraft) there is a proposed high speed transport that will cruise using ramjets at M4. Now fair enough, that is not afterburners. Does this mean every non-gas-turbine engined plane that can cruise >M1 is a supercruise candidate? Greglocock (talk) 08:51, 9 January 2017 (UTC)
thread_title:  ramjet 

message: In about 2010 a breathless Lockheed PR dude (or dudette) claimed the F35 could supercruise. It turns out that what they really meant was that if it accelerate to M1.6 on afterburners, and  then switched the afterburners, it would take some distance to slow down to below M1. This is of course true for all supersonic aircraft. The bogosity of the original claim was enhanced by a mathematical error by a factor of 10. Anyway when all this was pointed out to them several times by many people they shut up about it. AFAIK there is no current information provided by Lockheed or anyone else reliable claiming that the F35 can supercruise.  http://www.jsf.mil/contact/con_faqs.htm  etc. Greglocock (talk) 07:51, 1 May 2018 (UTC)
thread_title:  The F-35's long suppressed claim to supercruise 

message: Perhaps it might be better to split the a/c designed/found to cruise supersonically with afterburner, from those that do not need afterburner. Greglocock (talk) 00:07, 19 December 2018 (UTC)
replies: text: On second thoughts I'd rather move all these non complying a/c to the section they already have. Greglocock (talk) 01:31, 19 December 2018 (UTC)
thread_title:  Split the awful list, supersonic cruising vs supercruise 

message: It's true, as I put in the article, but sources are hard to find. An obvious example is from a SmarterEveryDay video which shows a 2-seater F-16 just breaking Mach 1 at ~29.5 kft. Other examples of sources are not reliable, but promising nonetheless (example claims to have a flight manual that states F-15C can just pass M1 in mil power - highly dubious source, though). There were plenty of examples of similar behavior listed that I removed or clarified. 
I prefer a set of criteria that looks like this for being "real supercruise":
* Carrying combat-ready load (say, at least 2 AAM + 1 external fuel tank, or 4 AAM w/o fuel tank for stealth fighters? This is contentious alone, but it's still a practical measure)
* Can sustain it in level flight under 25 kft
Caveats may include stuff like "doesn't destroy engine", etc. These criteria exclude the Thunderbirds F-16 but include planes like the F-22. How can the wiki have clear criteria for "supercruise" when it seems to be more of a marketing term rather than scientific measurement like climb rate, thrust, etc? These criteria seem fair because most planes marketed as supercruise-able fit them, while planes that technically can (ie clean F-16) do not. It's more representative of what a manufacturer means when they use the term. I realize this is skirting NOR, but from a few hours of trying to find good sources, it seems there just aren't any. HarryKernow (talk)   18:34, 11 May 2021 (UTC)
thread_title:  4th gen jets can faux-supercruise 

message: I removed several planes that had citations that generally did not point to the plane having supercruise ability. Some said it was possible in a clean config (F-16N), others flat out stated that it wasn't supercruise (BAC TSR). The most interesting one is from this paper (page 123 (134 on the pdf)) that says "The F-16XL was intended to be capable of achieving Mach 2.2 at high altitude and Mach 1.2 at sea level. However, its maximum airspeed in some military thrust and in all augmented thrust (afterburning) conditions was never determined during the Air Force flight-test demonstration program." implying that they simply didn't test military power supersonic cruising. HarryKernow (talk)   05:22, 4 March 2022 (UTC)
replies: text: Excluding the F-16XL-2 SCAMP (Supersonic Cruise And Maneuver Prototype) on the grounds it didn't carry an external weapons load, while super cruising, is irrelevant. As you would have to exclude the Concorde, F-22, YF-22, and YF-23, on the same grounds. The F-16 SCAMP  (Supersonic Cruise And Maneuver Prototype) program explicitly setting a requirement of super cruising, and a prototype achieving the stated goal, justifies its inclusion. A.j.roberts (talk) 00:01, 20 February 2023 (UTC)
replies: text: It's very clearly not about the load's externality. The F-16XL failed to properly demonstrate super cruise capability beyond that of the F-16 it was based on, both of which could barely break M1.0 at around 30kft. The NASA source very clearly states "Neither F-16XL flight demonstrator proved to be capable of true supercruise performance, as was later attained by the Lockheed YF-22A ATF prototype and the production Lockheed Martin F-22A Raptor" which supports excluding the F-16XL (and the F-16), while including the F-22. The Concorde could have a full passenger load and fly at Mach 2 over the Atlantic without afterburner. Do you sincerely think I wish to remove it? - The fact of the matter is that my justification for excluding it is laid out in plain terms by the NASA paper. HarryKernow (talk)   07:39, 20 February 2023 (UTC)
thread_title:  Clarification on quality RS for supercruise ability and speed 

message: The F-16XL has truly given me the run-around in terms of finding citations for its supercruise ability. This paper (same as linked above) states plainly: "Neither F-16XL flight demonstrator proved to be capable of true supercruise performance, as was later attained by the Lockheed YF-22A ATF prototype and the production Lockheed Martin F-22A Raptor. As defined by the Air Force, supercruise provided a capability for sustained supersonic flight without the use of afterburner." (p.116, or 127 on the pdf), specifying in an endnote that "Much later, during the NASA flight-test program (with the aircraft totally clean of any external stores, including armament pylons, and powered by the higher-thrust General Electric F110-GE-129 engine, F-16XL-2 demonstrated sustained Mach 1.1 flight in Military (nonafterburning) power at an altitude of 30,000 feet." I think this is substantial enough evidence to exclude the F-16XL from the list, even if the Langley report mentions "Langley was involved in research on several variants of the F-16, including the highly impressive F-I6XL, which was a derivative that can cruise efficiently at supersonic speeds without use of an afterburner." (p.147, 161 on the pdf). The F-16XL clearly does not match the capability of planes like the F-22, and even though originally supercruise appears to have been an important part of the program (SCaMP), they either didn't really establish the actual prototypes as having meaningful supercruise capability. In fact it even seems (to me) that GD didn't even try promoting the F-16XL as a true supercruise fighter. In any case, as I've said, this is more than enough evidence to exclude the -16XL. Let me know if you find anything I have missed. HarryKernow (talk)   06:40, 15 March 2022 (UTC)
replies: text: Excluding the F-16XL-2 SCAMP (Supersonic Cruise And Maneuver Prototype) on the grounds it didn't carry an external weapons load, while super cruising, is irrelevant. As you would have to exclude the Concorde, F-22, YF-22, and YF-23, on the same grounds. The F-16 SCAMP  (Supersonic Cruise And Maneuver Prototype) program explicitly setting a requirement of super cruising, and a prototype achieving the stated goal, justifies its inclusion. A.j.roberts (talk) 00:01, 20 February 2023 (UTC)
replies: text: It's very clearly not about the load's externality. The F-16XL failed to properly demonstrate super cruise capability beyond that of the F-16 it was based on, both of which could barely break M1.0 at around 30kft. The NASA source very clearly states "Neither F-16XL flight demonstrator proved to be capable of true supercruise performance, as was later attained by the Lockheed YF-22A ATF prototype and the production Lockheed Martin F-22A Raptor" which supports excluding the F-16XL (and the F-16), while including the F-22. The Concorde could have a full passenger load and fly at Mach 2 over the Atlantic without afterburner. Do you sincerely think I wish to remove it? - The fact of the matter is that my justification for excluding it is laid out in plain terms by the NASA paper. HarryKernow (talk)   07:39, 20 February 2023 (UTC)
thread_title:  More on F-16XL 

message: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sukhoi_Su-57#Specifications_(Su-57)
--Tuxayo (talk) 19:59, 19 April 2022 (UTC)
thread_title:  Add Sukhoi Su-57