AHC: Rocket interception



Can anyone think of a scenario where a rocket boosted air to air interception occurs? Bonus points the closer to OTL the scenario is.
 
The Me163 wasn't rocket boosted, it was rocket powered. Perhaps splitting hairs I know, but there you have it.
 

CalBear

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Best bet in that case is one of the flights out of Chu Lai. They had regular JATO there in 1965-66, and used arrested landing on the A-4s on occasion as well (runway was about 4,000')
 
Can anyone think of a scenario where a rocket boosted air to air interception occurs? Bonus points the closer to OTL the scenario is.

In 1963, the West Germans experimented with a F-104G Zero Length Launcher, based off of what the USAF was doing in 1958

avf100_09.jpg

640px-F-104G_ZLL_at_Luftwaffenmuseum_Berlin_Gatow.jpg

Have these put into service
 
The 1963 NF-104A was a test and training vehicle to allow familiarity with reaction controls. This was the airplane that Chuck Yeager found had an ineffective rcs, pushing him just outside the envelop, and out of the cockpit.

NF104GoingUp.jpg
 
There's the SR53/SR177 of course but there were also some MiG21 proposals with rocket boost for high altitude interception. Perhaps one of these could a have a crack at a U2.

 
Give Rolls-Royce a few more problems with the Avon reheat (which was a pig of a job anyway), and the Lightning wouldn't have had the performance it did. That might make the Saro mixed-power fighters survive long enough to see service, although given how much of a nightmare HTP fuel is I doubt they would have stuck around for very long.
 
At least three variants of the Messerschmitt Me 262 were built with mixed turbojet / rocket powerplants.
All three were so-called Heimatschützer (literally "homeland protectors")
Heimatschützer I, II and IV had mixed turbojet / rocket propulsion, while Heimatschützer III had rocket propulsion only.

Excerpts from the wikipedia article on the Me 262:
Me 262 C-1a
Single prototype [made from Me 262A Werknummer 130 186] of rocket-boosted interceptor (Heimatschützer I) with Walter HWK 109-509 liquid-fuelled rocket in the tail, first flown with combined jet/rocket power on 27 February 1945.
Me 262 C-2b
Single prototype [made from Me 262A Werknummer 170 074] of rocket-boosted interceptor (Heimatschützer II) with two BMW 003R "combined" powerplants (BMW 003 turbojet, with a single 9.8 kN (2,200 lbf) thrust BMW 109-718 liquid-fuelled rocket engine mounted atop the rear of each jet exhaust) for boosted thrust, only flown once with combined jet/rocket power on 26 March 1945.
Me 262 C-3a
Heimatschützer IV
- a rocket-boosted interceptor with a Walter HWK 109-509S-2 rocket motor housed in a permanent belly pack. Prototypes and initial production aircraft were captured before completion.
The reason why these versions were built seems to have been the fact that the Western Allies had begun to build or occupy airbases on the North Western European continent, which left the German air defences much less response time in the case of an attack than they had had when USAAF and RAF had airbases in Britain and Italy only.
 
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