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Flight ceiling?


VZ_342
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According to Wikipedia, the ceiling for the F-5 is about 51,000'.....I can generally climb to about 30-35k', but then the speed is so low (~250-300KIAS) that it has almost no oomph to climb over 15^....I generally lose patience at or just below 40,000'.

 

Is there a trick or technique to achieve 50K+? FWIW, even the F-15 handles like a cast iron bathtub at the 50k'+.....Thx!

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Yes there is.  Get up to 400 and keep 400 in the climb.   Reduce pitch as required.   I don't recall if 400 is the right speed, but try to keep M1.5 if you can get it up there.

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Reminder: SAM = Speed Bump :D

I used to play flight sims like you, but then I took a slammer to the knee - Yoda

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Made it to 50,300'! I zoom climbed to about 35,000, then maintained ~400 until 47k, then found I could go up 1000' for a 50 kias trade, but could barely speed up again. By the time I made it to 50k, I was doing about 200kias....but I made it!

 

Hit burners, dove straight down, and maxed out about mach 1.45. Pulled out at 12000-->10000, had slowed to 800. 

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Good work!  Note that the ceiling is usually defined as still being able to climb at some small rate.   So if you're not managing this, then you need to maintain higher speed before you begin your climb - ie. the reason you're at 200KIAS at 50000 is because you didn't start the climb with enough speed.  At these altitudes you'll need to maintain a mach number, I gave you the KIAS as an easy example to follow and you did good - now you can try to fine tune ... unfortunately I don't recall the climbing techniques for this aircraft so you might have to experiment, but the basic idea is always get to a mach number and try to keep it as you climb 🙂


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[sIGPIC][/sIGPIC]

Reminder: SAM = Speed Bump :D

I used to play flight sims like you, but then I took a slammer to the knee - Yoda

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You'd probably be searching for F-5E climb technique or F-5E flight manuals (they may include a flight technique there).

 

At those altitudes it's going to be over M1 ... M1.4+ for 50000'.   Less than mach 1 is not enough, as you noticed your indicated speed drops with altitude and engines need airflow to provide thrust.   So climb to best acceleration altitude (probably between 30000 and 40000), get moving at M1.3 at least and then climb, maintaining that mach number.   Every 0.1 Mach is +60kts.

[sIGPIC][/sIGPIC]

Reminder: SAM = Speed Bump :D

I used to play flight sims like you, but then I took a slammer to the knee - Yoda

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