Streak Eagle
January 17th, 1975 a lone F-15A was stripped of its paint, speed brake, flap actuators, radar and fire control systems, unneeded cockpit instrumentation, generators, redundant radios and anything that could be left on the ground. Engineers even removed her Vulcan 20 mm cannon and all external pylons, leaving a super clean, slick, light and powerful F-15A Eagle that had only one place to go...UP like a bat out of hell!
The goal was to steal the crown from the Soviets that held the record for reaching the highest altitudes from a stationary start on the runway. The MIG-25 "Foxbat," held the three highest record positions since 1973. Prior to the Foxbat, previous altitude records had been held by the USAF F-4 "Phantom" since 1962.
Streak Eagle had one mission and that was to smash the "time to climb" records held by the Soviet Foxbat.
Streak Eagle was held in place at the end of the runway while hooked up to a hold-back bar as the pilot applied full afterburner. The explosive bolt detonated, suddenly freeing the Eagle to accelerate down the active. Rotating after only 400 feet of runway, Streak Eagle pulled into an 80-degree climb while accelerating through the speed of sound. Like a homesick angel with her low fuel levels, bare skin and minimal equipment, sporting a thrust-to-weight ratio of nearly 2:1, she sliced through the lower atmosphere like a hot knife through butter. At altitudes, the Streak Eagle even managed to beat the climb rate of the Apollo Saturn V Rocket!
After the initial climb, the pilot kept a sustained 2.5G pull coming back over the base inverted at 32,000 feet. Rolling out, the super slick jet then accelerating to over two times the speed of sound pulling 4Gs into a 60-degree climb.
Streak Eagle reached an altitude of 98,425 feet in just 3 minutes, 27.8 seconds from brake release and "coasted" on the highest attempt reaching 103,000 feet in altitude. The pilot in the attempt to utilize every last bit of energy kept Streak Eagle in its climb until airspeed bleed off to as little as 55 knots...only then pushing the stick forward and back towards the Earth. During the coast phase her engines had to be shut down before overheating or flaming out due to lack of air density. During the descent phase her engines were restarted to allow a powered approach back to base.
Streak Eagle broke eight time-to-climb world records between January 16th and February 1st, 1975. After proving that Eagles dared, she was delivered to the National Museum Of The United States Air Force where she still remains to this day.
I was wing OMS officer during Streak eagle at Grand Forks AFB, ND quite a day and very cold exciting day.
January 16, 1975, was historic, as records for the first five altitudes fell in the space of six hours, with the three in the middle all occurring on the same flight. On the first record flight, the “Streak Eagle” was flown to the 3,000 meter height in 27.57 seconds, eclipsing the old mark by a margin of 6.9 seconds.
The 6,000 meter record of 39.33 seconds (by a margin of 9.5 seconds); 9,000 meters in 48.86 seconds (by a margin of 12.8 seconds); and 12,000 meters in 59.38 seconds (by a margin of 17.7 seconds), were all set on the same flight. Maj. MacFarlane flew this record flight. “He lifted off in the blink of an eye, level accelerated just a few feet off the ground, pulled up into a vertical climb and accelerated through the speed of sound easily while in the vertical climb,” Enos said. “The airplane and engines operated perfectly.”
For the record attempts at 15,000 meters and above, pilots wore high-altitude pressure suits. At these higher altitudes, the Streak Eagle was 10 seconds faster to altitude than the Apollo Saturn Rocket moon shots. The 15,000 meter record of 77.02 seconds (by a margin of 37.5 seconds) was flown on a profile similar to the lower record flights. The last three record flights had similar profiles – a level acceleration at just above ground level, followed by a constant G pull up to a vertical climb, and then an “Immelmann turn,” an aerobatic maneuver that results in level flight in the opposite direction at a higher altitude, followed by an acceleration to the target Mach number, then a constant G pull up to the optimum climb angle. Incredibly, on the 30,000 meter record attempt, at the time of the Immelmann, the aircraft was about 21 miles down-range and through Mach 2 speed – only two minutes after take-off. On that flight, a promotional U.S. Air Force video reported that the “Streak Eagle” was on a “nearly ballistic flight path.”
The 20,000 meter record of 122.94 seconds (by a margin of 46.8 seconds) was set on Jan. 19 and the 25,000 meter mark of 161.02 seconds (by a margin of 31.6 seconds) was set on Jan. 26. The historic 30,000 meter record of 207.80 seconds (by a margin of 36.1 seconds) was set on Feb. 1. The first attempt at 30,000 meters, however, was unsuccessful. “We analyzed that we needed a cold day to break the record,” Enos said, “and that if we got one, we would do so not by a little but by a lot. The first attempt came on a warm day and we just missed it. We needed a seven degree centigrade cold day at altitude, and we waited for it. And when we got it, we crushed the record.”
Ah, in this entire write up about “Time to Climb” records, none of those records are actually listed save for one of the eagle times. Just sayin…. writing 101… in an article about records, spell them out, the eagle beat it by how much time..?
This occurred at Grand Forks AFB, North Dakota, not Minot.
I sat in a flight line truck at Minot AFB in January on a very typically cold night and watched that amazing attempt to set the record. It was something to see. Many years later I worked for P&W-GEB on several F-15 programs along with the F-22 engine program.
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