🚀 go-pugleaf

In article <78@enuxha.eas.asu.edu> kluksdah@enuxha.eas.asu.edu (Norman C. Kluksdahl) writes:
>... Still, air launch does promise something--I read that OSC's
>Pegasus gains about 15% in usable payload by air launch at Mach 0.8. 

As I recall, the velocity is a relatively minor consideration -- it's
the altitude that helps Pegasus significantly.  (It might be different
if a hypersonic carrier aircraft were available, but none is.)

>Just imagine the gain if they had an XB-70 to launch from... :-) :-) :-)

At least one study for a successor to the X-15 was figuring on using an
XB-70 launch.  This pretty much died when the second XB-70, the one of
choice for this job for some reason, got wiped out in a mid-air collision.
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