Highest flight by a NZ reg or military aircraft

[suthg]

WOW! It does the full depth of the page. That's quite cool!

[conman]

Mar 17, 2013 16:09:17 GMT 12 beagle said:

What sort of max heights did the Skyhawks get up to

I would imagine that an A4 should a least be able to "zoom" over 50,000 ft if not maintain that height, depends if anyone was brave enough

[haughtney1]

Never did it in NZ but we went up to FL510 over Littlerock on our G550 C1 (customer acceptance) flight..which is a looooooooong way up.

[Barnsey]

The A4 wouldn't really get above approx 42000' (I can't remember the A4s max ceiling...!) as the wing and engine were definitely better at lower altitudes, thanks to the high induced drag on a delta wing at higher AOA at the low IAS, and the J52 running out of puff at height. This was also one of the reasons why the A4 wouldn't hack it in a modern shooting war as it couldn't keep up with a war load at altitude and would lose too much height during any defensive manoeuvring.

I flew a Macchi to about 44500' but gave up trying to get to it's 45000' ceiling as the rate of climb was so slow. With its straight wing, the Macchi definitely handled better "up in the menopause".

[Dave Homewood]

Wow, I never realised the Macchi could fly that high. Awesome.

[gtw]

The Macchi can fly slow to, one formated on me when I was spreading super in a Cropmaster east
east of Pearce W A He had a lot of drag hung out too, looked good.

[Dave Homewood]

That would be cool!!

[beagle]

So at this stage no RNZAF aircraft has reached 50 000 ft

[Dave Homewood]

What about that rocket they fired from Birdlings Flat in the 1960's? ;D

[sluf7]

I would go with the VULCAN as there was a pic of a Vulcan wearing a Kiwi insignia (does that count) on the side more than a few years back.

Having done the Hypoxia course at Hobson Base I Suspect any lack of Oxygen over 30000foot would be less than 30 seconds by quite a margin....