A
rocket-powered aircraft or
rocket plane is an
aircraftAn aircraft is a vehicle which is able to fly by being supported by the air, or in general, the atmosphere of a planet. An aircraft counters the force of gravity by using either static lift or by using the dynamic lift of an airfoil An aircraft is a vehicle which is able to fly by being supported...
that uses a
rocketA rocket or rocket vehicle is a missile, spacecraft, aircraft or other vehicle which obtains thrust by the reaction of the rocket to the ejection of a jet of fast moving fluid exhaust from a rocket engine. Chemical rockets create their exhaust by the combustion of rocket propellant...
for propulsion, sometimes in addition to airbreathing
jet engineA jet engine is a reaction engine that discharges a fast moving jet of fluid to generate thrust in accordance with Newton's laws of motion. This broad definition of jet engines includes turbojets, turbofans, rockets, ramjets, pulse jets and pump-jets...
s. Rocket planes can achieve much higher speeds than similarly-sized jet aircraft, but typically for at most a few minutes of powered operation, followed by a
glideFor the sport of soaring in gliders , see GlidingGliding flight is heavier than air flight without the use of thrust. It is employed by gliding animals and by aircraft such as gliders. The most common human application of gliding flight is in sport and recreation using aircraft designed for this...
. Unhindered by the need for oxygen from the atmosphere they are suitable for very high altitude flight.
A
rocket-powered aircraft or
rocket plane is an
aircraftAn aircraft is a vehicle which is able to fly by being supported by the air, or in general, the atmosphere of a planet. An aircraft counters the force of gravity by using either static lift or by using the dynamic lift of an airfoil An aircraft is a vehicle which is able to fly by being supported...
that uses a
rocketA rocket or rocket vehicle is a missile, spacecraft, aircraft or other vehicle which obtains thrust by the reaction of the rocket to the ejection of a jet of fast moving fluid exhaust from a rocket engine. Chemical rockets create their exhaust by the combustion of rocket propellant...
for propulsion, sometimes in addition to airbreathing
jet engineA jet engine is a reaction engine that discharges a fast moving jet of fluid to generate thrust in accordance with Newton's laws of motion. This broad definition of jet engines includes turbojets, turbofans, rockets, ramjets, pulse jets and pump-jets...
s. Rocket planes can achieve much higher speeds than similarly-sized jet aircraft, but typically for at most a few minutes of powered operation, followed by a
glideFor the sport of soaring in gliders , see GlidingGliding flight is heavier than air flight without the use of thrust. It is employed by gliding animals and by aircraft such as gliders. The most common human application of gliding flight is in sport and recreation using aircraft designed for this...
. Unhindered by the need for oxygen from the atmosphere they are suitable for very high altitude flight. They are also capable of delivering much higher acceleration and shorter takeoffs.
Rockets have been used simply to assist the main propulsion in the form of
Jet Assisted Take OffJATO is an acronym for Jet-fuel Assisted Take Off. The term is used interchangeably with the term RATO, for Rocket-Assisted Take Off. It is a system for helping overloaded aircraft into the air by providing additional thrust in the form of small rockets...
(JATO) also known as "Rocket Assisted Take Off" (RATO). Not all rocket planes are of the conventional takeoff like "normal" aircraft. Some types have been air-launched from another plane, while other types have taken off vertically - nose in the air and tail to the ground ("tail-sitters"). It is also possible, that rocket planes launch vertically without changing their orientation.
Because of the heavy propellant use and the various practical difficulties of operating rockets, the majority of rocket planes have been built for experimental use, as
interceptor-Vehicles:* Ford Crown Victoria Police Interceptor, a police car* Ford Interceptor, a 2007 concept car built on a stretched version of the Ford D2C platform* Interceptor 400, a civilian aircraft marque...
fighters and space aircraft.
History
The first rocket-powered aircraft was the
Lippisch EnteThe Ente was the world’s first rocket-powered full-size aircraft. It was designed by Alexander Lippisch as a sailplane and first flown under power on June 11 1928, piloted by Fritz Stamer....
, flown in 1928. The Russian
Bereznyak-Isayev BI-1Soviet research and development of rocket-powered aircraft began with Sergey Korolev's GIRD-6 project in 1932. His interest in stratospheric flight was also shared by Marshal Mikhail Tukhachevsky who supported this early work...
flew in 1942.
The
Heinkel He 176The Heinkel He 176 was a German rocket-powered aircraft. It was the world’s first aircraft to be propelled solely by a liquid-fuelled rocket, making its first powered flight on 20 June 1939 with Erich Warsitz at the controls.-Early Experiments:...
was the world’s first aircraft to be propelled solely by a liquid-fuelled
rocketA rocket engine or simply "rocket" is a jet engine[Rocket Propulsion Elements; 7th edition- chapter 1] that uses only propellant mass for forming its high speed propulsive jet. Rocket engines are reaction engines and obtain thrust in accordance with Newton's third law...
, making its first powered flight on 20 June 1939 with
Erich WarsitzErich Warsitz was a German test pilot of the 1930s. He held the rank of Flight-Captain in the Luftwaffe and was selected by the Reich Air Ministry as chief test pilot at Peenemünde West...
at the controls.
The antipodal bomber was planned by the Germans late in WWII, however later calculations showed that it would not have worked, and would have been destroyed during reentry.
The only rocket planes ever to be mass-produced were the
Messerschmitt Me 163The Messerschmitt Me 163 Komet, designed by Alexander Martin Lippisch, was a German rocket-powered fighter aircraft. It was the only operational rocket-powered fighter aircraft to date. It was a revolutionary design, capable of performance unrivaled at the time.Messerschmitt test pilot Rudy Opitz...
in 1944, one of several
GermanGermany , officially the Federal Republic of Germany , is a country in Central Europe. It is bordered to the north by the North Sea, Denmark, and the Baltic Sea; to the east by Poland and the Czech Republic; to the south by Austria and Switzerland; and to the west by France, Luxembourg, Belgium,...
World War IIWorld War II, or the Second World War , was a global military conflict which involved a majority of the world's nations, including all great powers, organized into two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis...
attempts at rocket-powered aircraft., and the Japanese also produced 850
OhkaThe Yokosuka MXY-7 Ohka, was a purpose-built, rocket powered human-guided anti-shipping kamikaze attack plane employed by Japan towards the end of World War II...
, rocket powered suicide attack planes.
In the 1950s the British developed mixed power designs to cover the performance gap that existed in current turbojet designs. The rocket was the main engine for delivering the speed and height required for high speed interception of high level bombers and the turbojet gave increased fuel economy in other parts of flight, most notably to make sure the aircraft was able to make a powered landing rather than risking an unpredictable gliding return. The Saunders-Roe SR.53 was a successful design and was due to be developed into production when economics forced curtailment of most British aircraft programmes in the late 1950s. The advancement of the turbojet engine output, the advent of missiles, and advances in radar had made a return to mixed power unnecessary.
The rocket plane
Bell X-1The Bell X-1, originally designated XS-1, was a joint NACA-U.S. Army Air Forces/US Air Force supersonic research project and the first aircraft to exceed the speed of sound in controlled, level flight...
was the first aircraft to break the speed of sound in level flight. The development of X-1 was the driving force behind the development of the Space Program.
The
North American X-15The North American X-15 rocket-powered aircraft was part of the X-series of experimental aircraft, initiated with the Bell X-1, that were made for the USAF, NASA, and the USN. The X-15 set speed and altitude records in the early 1960s, reaching the edge of outer space and returning with valuable...
was used for several years and eventually reached
MachMach number is the speed of an object moving through air, or any fluid substance, divided by the speed of sound as it is in that substance...
6.7.
In the early 60s research into the
X-20 Dyna-SoarThe X-20 Dyna-Soar was a United States Air Force 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...
spaceplane was cancelled due to lack of purpose; later the studies contributed to the
Space ShuttleThe Space Shuttle, part of the Space Transportation System , is a spacecraft operated by NASA for orbital human spaceflight missions. It began operations in the 1980s and is scheduled to be retired from service in 2010 after 134 launches...
.
The
Lunar Landing Research VehicleThe Bell Aerosystems Lunar Landing Research Vehicle was an Apollo Project era program to build a simulator for the Moon landings. The LLRVs, humorously referred to as "flying bedsteads", were used by the FRC, now known as the NASA Dryden Flight Research Center, at Edwards Air Force Base,...
was a mixed powered vehicle- a jet engine cancelled 5/6 of the force due to gravity, and the rocket power was able to simulate the Apollo lunar lander.
The development of
SpaceShipOneSpaceShipOne is a rocket-powered aircraft that completed the first privately funded human spaceflight on June 21, 2004. It was developed by Scaled Composites....
, first flown in 2003, and
XCOR AerospaceXCOR Aerospace is a private rocket engine and spaceflight development company based at the Mojave Spaceport in Mojave, California. XCOR was formed by former members of the Rotary Rocket rocket engine development team in September, 1999...
's EZ-Rocket, suggests that rocket planes may become more common.
See also
External links