Talk:Flight altitude record

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I've added a few records by Louis Paulhan to the table, but it now occurs to me that this page could be problematic because the FAI no longer keeps a single record for altitude in aeroplanes, but a number of separate records, depending on payload carried - more than 50 separate records in all. Then you need to consider the type and sub-classs of aeroplane - dozens more to multiply the 50+ by. Then powerplant...... Quite honestly, I don't think this page can work as it is without a much tighter defintion, and even then.... Emeraude 18:18, 2 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]

- Well...maybe the table should be broken up. Have records for Prop planes in one table, then records for Jets in another then for rocket-powered planes, balloons, and maybe space vehicles in others. I don't think it would be necessary to take into account plane type, powerhouse, etc. other than listing the record holder's model and a link to the planes' pages if they exist, because in the general sense of the article a prop plane is a prop plane. KoreFelpz 02:53, 20 April 2007 (UTC)

Inclusion of rocket planes

I don't think it's justified to include the X-15 and SpaceShipOne records, because they are more sub-orbital rockets than airplanes. Otherwise the Appollo flights should be included. --80.139.102.211 17:56, 7 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Table needs some fixing

Hey, if someone has the time to fix this page's table, please do. On my Mario Pezzi page (under Record Flight) I have the names and altitudes of the highest propeller planes in the 19-teens. (years) Also its confusing as all the heights are in different measurements. I dont have the time to convert or I would --Joooeeeelllll 21:55, 8 July 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Merger soon.

I removed the merger tag because I will soon perform the merger. I will post again when I complete the task.Kville105125 17:37, 17 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

I merged in Manned balloon altitude records. Another merge candidate, List of altitude records reached by different aircraft types (marked since Dec '06) remains to be done. Hult041956 (talk) 01:42, 17 November 2007 (UTC)[reply]

And today I merged in List of altitude records reached by different aircraft types. We now have one article where once there were three. The result is very rough. However, interested contributors should be able to improve one article better than three. Hult041956 (talk) 23:21, 27 November 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Bad precision

I just made a few edits to this page. I replaced the uses of thinsp with nbsp, because nbsp is the recommendation of WP:MOSNUM and thinsp doesn't show up properly in IE 6. I also used {{convert}} extensively to provide good unit conversions. I noticed something odd. It appears that throughout the article, but especially in the "All balloons" section, someone took a bunch of highly imprecise measurements in feet (for example, 72,000 ft), and converted them to kilometers with a precision of three decimal places. This is misleading and needs to be fixed, but first we need the original sources. Does anyone know where this information came from? TomTheHand (talk) 16:29, 28 November 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Ah, I should have looked before I added my section below. Tom is right. For example, the Russians claim Osoaviakhim-1 flew to 22,000 meters. Clearly that got converted to feet, rounded, and back to meters to get 21,946. DonPMitchell (talk) 05:29, 7 August 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Fedotov

> The highest altitude obtained by a manned air-breathing jet propelled aircraft following an uncontrolled ballistic trajectory is 37,650 m (123,524 ft) set by Alexandr Fedotov, in a Mikoyan Gurevitch E-266M (MiG-25M), on 31 August 1977. <

This looks like bogus. FAI regulations dertermine maximum altitude as the altitude where the air plane's capability to climb further falls below 0.5 meters/second, therefore you cannot set a record by a "jump arc" started from a high-speed run, you have to honestly climb there. 82.131.210.162 (talk) 10:18, 23 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Balloon Data FUBAR

You'd be amazed by how many different values for these altitudes are given in different sources. Hawthorne Gray's record has been reported as:

43380 feet (wikipedia) 42470 feet (britannica) 42000 feet (centennial of flight) 42740 feet National USAF Museum (note swapped digits)

For Piccard's May 27 flight:

15787 meters (wikipedia) 15781 meters (britannica) 15838 meters (centennial of flight) 15787 meters (centennial of flight, another page on their site!)

You know the old saying about Wired Magazine: "Wired: Spell Checking. Tired: Fact Checking". OK, so I decided to dig into a few of these, because I got curious if one can even pin down the "correct" answer:

Nov 4, 1927 - Hawthorn Gray - 42470 feet (NAA/Bureau of Standards inspection of barometer)

May 27, 1931 - A. Piccard - 15781 meters (Aero Club of Switzerland official report)

Aug 18, 1932 - A. Piccard - 16201 meters (Aero Club of Switzerland official report)

Sep 30, 1933 - CCCP-1 - 19 km (Oct 16 report, Special Committee drawn from various agencies)

Jan 30, 1934 - Osoaviakhim-1 - 22 km (Soviet report) (again I do not believe there exist legitamate reports of higher precision)

Nov 10, 1935 - Explorer II - 72395 feet (NAA/Bureau of Standards report)

I don't even know how to edit this improved data into the cock-eyed table in this article. It appears they have to be converted to kilometers first. DonPMitchell (talk) 21:23, 12 August 2008 (UTC)[reply]

OK, I tried changing

13.222 km (43,380 ft)

to

42,470 ft (12.94 km)

and it explodes:

42,470 ft ({{rnd/cExpression error: Unexpected < operatordecExpression error: Unexpected < operator|Expression error: Unexpected < operator|(Expression error: Unexpected < operator)}} km)

General Atomics Altus II

How about the General Atomics ALTUS II, it reached an altitude of 57,300' and was powered by a 4 cylinder Rotax with a two stage turbocharger. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/General_Atomics_ALTUS Ratsbew (talk) 15:54, 30 March 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Wiley Post altitude record?

I have read that the great American flier Wiley Post had reached an altitude of 50,000 feet in his modified Lockheed Vega 5-C "Winnie Mae" way back in 1934. If this is true, wouldn't that be another altitude record?

76.21.37.87 (talk) 23:02, 27 May 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Consistent table dates

The dates in the table are in various formats. I recommend standardizing them to the ISO 8601 format (yyyy-mm-dd), consistent with the wiki style as being used elsewhere. If there are no objections, I will go ahead and make the fix. 99.59.154.149 (talk) 19:18, 3 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Helicopters/rotorcraft

There are no records here for helicopter flight, and I can't find any other article that covers them. --Dhartung | Talk 05:01, 15 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Yes - I was looking for the same thing but could not find anything. --Murfas —Preceding undated comment added 13:14, 9 December 2009 (UTC).[reply]

Chapter is now added Roidroid (talk) 15:40, 30 April 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Piston-driven propeller aeroplane

isn't it the grob Strato 2C with 18100 meters? http://www.dlr.de/ft/desktopdefault.aspx/tabid-1388/1918_read-3386/ —Preceding unsigned comment added by 92.229.96.5 (talk) 14:54, 13 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Space Shuttle, or X-15 and SpaceShipOne need to go

SpaceShipOne and the X-15 are less worthy than the Space Shuttle. Both are dropped by other vehicles; they do not take off under their own power. The Space Shuttle merely has JATO and a drop tank. It definitely takes off under its own power. 208.118.18.233 (talk) 07:41, 4 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]

—Preceding unsigned comment added by 92.231.162.212 (talk) 19:25, 24 January 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Additional data from Bell X-2, Douglas D-558 and NAA X-15 (50s and early 60s)

92.231.162.212 (talk) 19:49, 24 January 2011 (UTC) hello there,[reply]

I am missing all altitude records made by the Bell X-1, Douglas D-558 and Bell X-2 from the late 40s to the 50s. In addition some records made by the X-15 in the early 60s are missing as well. I give data and sources here asking for acknowledgement, but I agree it may be useful (necessary?) to rework the entire list.

Data (the date is given in European format dd.mm.yyyy)

Date Pilot Altitude aircraft remark

25.07.1949 Frank Everest 66,890 ft 20,388 m Bell X-1

04.08.1949 Frank Everest 71,950 ft 21,930 m Bell X-1

20.11.1953 Albert Scott Crossfield 71,850 ft 21,900 m D-558-II

03.08.1956 Ivan C. Kincheloe 87,810 ft 26,764 m Bell X-2 —Preceding unsigned comment added by 92.231.162.212 (talk) 19:59, 24 January 2011 (UTC)[reply]

07.09.1956 Ivan C. Kincheloe 126,200 ft 38,466 m Bell X-2 † F-104-Crash 26.7.1958

12.08.1960 Robert M. “Bob” White 136,500 ft 41,605 m NAA X-15

30.03.1961 Joseph A. “Joe” Walker 169,600 ft 51,694 m NAA X-15

11.10.1961 Robert M. “Bob” White 217,000 ft 66,142 m NAA X-15

30.04.1962 Joseph A. “Joe” Walker 246,700 ft 75,194 m NAA X-15

Sources (could be verified at ebay, amazon or abebooks)

Melvyn Smith “Space Shuttle, from X-15 to Orbiter”, Haynes Pubns, 1986.

J Miller, C Yeager “X planes”, Arlington Aerofax, 1988.

Reichl, Eugen „X-Planes“, Motorbuch-Verlag, 2009.

Darling, Kev “American X and Y planes II (since 1945)”, Crowood Pr, 2010.

Thompson, Milton “At the Edge of Space: The X-15 Flight Program”, Smithsonian, 1992.

In addition, there is a list of all X-2 and X-15 flights given here at wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_X-15_flights http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_X-2_flights http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_X-1_flights best regards, Wolfgang.

PS.: Sorry to the previous poster here - for an unknown reason my post was added to the previous one, although I had clicked "New section". I am not quite familiar with the proceeding here ... apologizing, Wolfgang. 92.231.162.212 (talk) 19:49, 24 January 2011 (UTC)[reply]

corrected data from X-1/D-558-II/X-2 and X-15

85.177.171.118 (talk) 19:17, 25 January 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Pls find below corrected data to the best of my knowledge.

Plane Date Pilot Altitude ft height m miles

X-1 25.07.1949 Frank Pete Everest 66,890 20,388

X-1 04.08.1949 Frank Pete Everest 71,950 21,930

D-558-2 15.08.1951 William Bill Bridgeman 79,494 24,230

D-558-2 21.08.1953 Marion Eugene Carl 83,235 25,370

X-2 03.08.1956 Ivan Carl Kincheloe 87,810 26,764

X-2 07.09.1956 Ivan Carl Kincheloe 126,200 38,466

X-15 12.08.1960 Robert M. Bob White 136,500 41,605

X-15 30.03.1961 Joseph A. Joe Walker 169,600 51,694

X-15 11.10.1961 Robert M. Bob White 217,000 66,142

X-15 30.04.1962 Joseph A. Joe Walker 246,700 75,194

X-15 17.07.1962 Robert M. Bob White 314,750 95,936 59.6

X-15 19.07.1963 Joseph A. Joe Walker 347,800 106,009 65.9

X-15 22.08.1963 Joseph A. Joe Walker 354,200 107,960 67.1

regards, W.

85.177.171.118 (talk) 19:17, 25 January 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Some new data added

85.177.169.159 (talk) 21:21, 1 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Some new data taken from Jay Miller "The X-Planes", Speciality Press, 1983.

28.05.1954 Arthur Murray 87,100 26,548

04.06.1954 Arthur Murray 89,750 27,356

26.08.1954 Arthur Murray 90,440 27,566

regards, W.

F 104

I am surprised that no one has enter the record of the F-104. On 7 May 1958 US Air Force Major Howard C. Johnson, flying YF-104A 55-2957, broke the world altitude record by flying to 91,243 feet at Edwards AFB.[47]