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Zoom climbs to the edge of space set the highest altitude records for jet aircraft taking off under their own power. Initially used as a method for the newly developed jet interceptors to gain extra height to reach incoming enemy bombers, they were also used to test new aircraft.
They were also used as a precursor to the space race to give potential astronauts the experience of flying in a near vacuum of space where the dynamics of flight changes dramatically. In this respect, the highest flights ever by a US jet aircraft were made in the early 1960s and stood until a Soviet MiG-25RB just beat them some 14 years later. This is the story of the life and death flights to the edge of space.

Read Maj. Robert W. Smith’s account of Yeager’s crash below. He set the US record height and many other of the highest zoom climbs without issue and was Yeager’s instructor.
http://www.kalimera.org/nf104/stories/stories_13.html

The 1952 Cranfield Report into the early zoom climb methods and theory
https://dspace.lib.cranfield.ac.uk/bitstream/handle/1826/7466/COA_Report_No_57_Apr_1952.pdf

Written reseached and presented by Paul Shillito
Images and footage, USAF, Lockheed, US DoD, Space Affairs, SkyshowTV

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