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Old April 29th, 2008, 04:49 PM
Grommo Grommo is offline
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Default Re: 262 breaking sound barrier

Quote:
Originally Posted by tikilal View Post
Why do we think the rockets were for supersonic flight instead of take off?
We don't but I only linked it out of interest. If a 262 was in the transonic range (and still in one piece!) then speculatively a rocket boost could have pushed it over the line even if the turbines had flamed out.

There is another claim that Heini Dittmar went supersonic in the Me163a V4 that I think was also flown by Hanna Reitsch.
He is now well known to have officially reached 1004.5km/hr in the rocket plane and had throttled back approaching this speed due to buffeting.
Mano Ziegler who was a friend of Dittmar apparently wrote in his book Me163 that the rocket went supersonic and that sonic booms were reported on the ground.
The 163 had a 14 percent thick wing root and 8 percent at the tips.
Dittmar lost control on his 1004.5km/hr flight.
On 6 July 1944 Heini Dittmar reached with the comet Me 163BV18 VA + SP a speed of 1130km / h
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