F-12B is produced

xaim-47a.jpg


AIM-47A on the Left, AIM-54A on the Right
The Phoenix was about 6" longer and 2" larger in diameter, 200 pounds more.
That gave 32lbs more in HE warhead. .3 Mach higher speed, 20 miles less range.
I believe that if the AIM-47 was in use the AIM-54 would have been designed to be compatible with it's launchers, probably a joint USAF/USN project.
I wonder what the implications for the Fleet Defense Fighter project, the F-111 and F-14 would be.
 
Is it plausible that a sucessfull F-12B, with a tested weapons system, could serve as the basis for an air-launch vehicle to LEO? I guess the aircraft would need to be upscaled to accomodate larger loads. But if the USAF already has the know-how to fly aircraft at match 3 at 24,000 meters and, unlike the Blackbird, use them to deploy missiles, is it too much of a stretch, as spaceflight keeps getting developed, to use a variant of the airframe to launch satellites into LEO?
Perhaps an earlier air launched ASAT system?
 
The issue is that Mach 3 is nothing compared to orbital speed of Mach 25. What makes things worse is that the rocket equation includes a logarithm, so Mach 2.5 is not 10% of Mach 25 but much less.

But Mach 3 at 18 miles up, you lose all that drag of trying to punch thru that lower atmosphere. No Max Q to worry about.
 
Musk's Falcon 9 separates at 50 miles, SR-71 tops out at round 18 miles.
Does launching at 18 miles and Mach 3 add enough DeltaV to change a suborbital shot to orbital?
The Falcon 9 second stage weights 93 tons though. Then again, it also delivers about 23 tons to LEO. Reduce that requirement and the rocket can be significantly lighter

The issue is that Mach 3 is nothing compared to orbital speed of Mach 25. What makes things worse is that the rocket equation includes a logarithm, so Mach 2.5 is not 10% of Mach 25 but much less.
Yes, but as Marathag said, you save the complexity of having a first stage that must punch through the troposphere. In other words, while dV numbers savings from sea level/static to 26km/Match 3 aren't that different, how much is that in terms of fuel mass?

Also, air launch means a fully reusable first stage (the aircraft), which makes launches significantly cheaper, as well as the flexibility of having plenty of "launch sites" - basically, anywhere with a long runway and depots of the fuel the F-12B would have used.

And a heavy enough air launched rocket would make it to LEO. The problem is what is "heavy enough" and whether the aircraft can support it and accelerate it to match 3 or not. The other question is whether the F-12B could make a quick dash, in order to give some additional starting speed to the rocket, without damage to the engines and airframe
 
Precisely. However, I don't know, but I doubt 11,000 pounds is enough to put a payload (say, half a ton) in LEO. The Ariane 5 second stage doubles that weight at 10 tons. While it is a more powerful rocket, meant to put satellites into GEO and beyond, it is twice the weight. And I don't know at what height and speed the Ariane 5 second stage is started.

I've just checked. The Ariane 5 second stage starts at 100 km, so I doubt air launch from match 3 at 24km is viable
The interest for an F-12-based satellite launcher would be in very small payloads, the sort of thing that would previously have required a Scout or (later) would require a Pegasus (also an air-launch system, by coincidence). The idea would be to have a system that can launch small satellites quickly, cheaply, and from an air base instead of a launch pad. A B-70 would have a significantly more practical payload, but I think you could probably munge something together to launch satellites of up to a few dozen kilograms, perhaps. It would most likely be an alternative to the Blue Scout Junior essentially using the F-12 as the first stage instead of a Castor. Functionally, it probably would not actually be used to launch satellites, just various suborbital payloads.
 
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