How do civilians fly faster than sound???

Just thought I’d pose this question. I deliberately have not researched this yet for discussion purposes!

So how can a civilian break the sound barrier? Clearly the way in the day was to get your self a seat on the beautiful Concorde... Alas those days are gone, and I suspect no one that reads this will actually of had that privilege (correct me if I’m wrong!!).

Then there are the likes of the Cessna Citation X (mach 0.92), Falcon 7X (mach 0.9), Gulfstream G550 and G500 (mach 0.887) – all nice and fast... Not pushing through the magic number though!

So now what? I’m a civvie with (just say) a butt load of wonga and I want to fly faster than the sound barrier!... What do I do?

Completely not what your looking for but, you could just purchase a Bull whip and master the art of cracking it. The crack is a sonic boom.

reply to post by Now_Then


www.incredible-adventures.com...

Just go to Russia and buy a ride on the Mig-25 Foxbat!

reply to post by slicobacon


[atsimg]http://files.abovetopsecret.com/images/member/e4cd84a801ad.gif[/atsimg]

Oooooh baby! - that's what I'm looking for!

Give Richard Branson a call.

He's looking for passengers on his space plane.

(You'll need a lot of 'wonga' though)

How do civilians fly faster than sound???

Well one alternative way to experience the speed and feel of going pas the speed of sound would be to make your own home made wind tunnel and mock test air vehicle . Then you could place yourself in the air vehicle and turn on your home made wind tunnel and experience what it is like virtually going past the speed of sound.

reply to post by wiredamerican


Well not ecactly Travelling faster than sound id it? You would be sat in your home made wind tunnel with no girlfriend and no good stories to tell at the pub.

Very simple, apply for the astronaut corps. Become a civilian astronaut, and you will fly three times faster than a speeding bullet. Speed of sound is junk compared to the speed at which the shuttle and ISS are travelling.

Get yourself down to Thunder City and book a ride in a Lightning. Pretty good prices too, starts from around £2000 if I'm not mistaken.

www.thundercity.com...

[edit on 7-4-2009 by Mike_A]

reply to post by Now_Then


Wouldn't like to have to pay for gas for that baby!

Anyone know how much a full tank would set you back, and how long it would last on full afterburn?

I'll keep the purposes of this response to the US, as others have pointed out ways to buy a supersonic ride outside the US.

There is no FAR or regulation that prevents a civvie from SS flight, only WHERE it can be done. So that begs the question of what vehicle. The only commercially available civvie one that I am aware of is/was (no longer available) homebuilt jet, the BD-10. I saw one fly several times and was impressed, it clearly was a very well performing machine. The test pilot at the time, a 117 driver and highest combat time pilot in the world, had nothing but good things to say about it, and I believe him. It was capable of SS flight, but I don't know if it ever did. Jim Bede is a designer and a business man of questionable intent, so all of his aviation adventures have failed. Too bad, he had some appealing designs.

So that brings us to military hardware. Well, off the top of my head, the F-86 will do it in a dive. I know of F-100's, F-104's, F-4's, Mig 17, Mig 21 etc. and many others in private hands that can do it. Provided you have a not unreasonable about of cash, the hardware is readily available.

Ok..now what? Where do you do it? FAR's do prevent SS flight over land except in approved restricted military airspace. The easy answer is outside the ADIZ over water, but there is a way to do it over land as well. Darryl Greenamyer (ex-mil) used the restricted airspace in 1977 at Edwards AFB to set the low altitude absolute speed record of 998 mph in a F-104 that he put together from surplus parts. Granted you are not going to get access to the airspace for joy rides, but EDW has a SS corridor that is used by the mil pilots daily and civvies have gotten into it in the past.

So...not terribly difficult really. Hope this helps.

Red