supercruise

By: FBW - 2nd December 2016 at 19:06

First off, the purpose of the thread is not to rehash whether X or Y aircraft can or cannot supercruise. That has been beaten to death and buries the more interesting topics
1. The original research on supersonic cruise (which interestingly had an entirely different definition)
2. Original rationale for supercruise
3. Factors of operationally significant supercruise

The semantic definition of supercruise we will use for purposes of the thread:
NASA Dryden-“supersonic cruise flight with "dry" engines” Beth Hagenauer

For an interesting history on determining a precise figure of the speed of sound and supersonic flight- http://history.nasa.gov/SP-4219/Chapter3.html

Everest Riccioni wrote: “Technical applications for an experimental supersonic cruise aircraft” AAIA 1976

F-16 SCAMP/XL https://www.nasa.gov/sites/default/files/atoms/files/elegance_in_flight.pdf

“Neither F-16XL flight demonstrator proved to be capable of true super¬cruise performance. As defined by the Air Force, supercruise provided a capability for sustained supersonic flight without the use of afterburner.” – Interesting footnote it was supposed to be able to fly mach 1.2 without afterburner, but never achieved that during military test program. Some interesting information about the F-16XL maneuver performance in the reading as well.

NASA supersonic cruise configurations:
https://archive.org/stream/NASA_NTRS_Archive_19760014073#page/n7/mode/2up

Interesting study from NASA on the various advanced carrier aircraft proposals 80’s-90’s
http://ntl.bts.gov/lib/1000/1200/1264/961330_samuels.pdf
Pg.39 in particular looks at the impact of a mach 1.5 dry supercruise requirement on the various designs weight.

Air Command Staff College paper “The search for advanced fighter”- last part discusses the ATF requirements.
http://www.dtic.mil/dtic/tr/fulltext/u2/a166724.pdf

Good overview from YF-23.net http://yf-23.net/ATFprogramme.html

Original ATF supercruise requirement (congressional record, letter from Ret. Col. Riccioni about F-22):
“mission for the Advanced Tactical Fighter, was a 100 mile subsonic cruise-out to the Russian border, 400 NM supersonic penetration at 1.6 Mach, consumption of the combat fuel, a 400 nautical mile supersonic return to the border at Mach 1.6, with a 100 NM return to land with normal reserves"
(Note- this was claimed by Riccioni, the requirements outlined in the 1985 RFP had an 800 nmi combat radius with up to 300 nmi at supersonic speeds)

This is just the tip, please feel free to add information, opinion, sources that fit the topic. Please refer X or Y supercruises better (or any reference to the F-35 yea or nay supercruise) to the appropriate junk threads.