Hazegrayart - Hypersonic Lifting Body To Space: The FDL-5

[catdlr]

How To Get Your Hypersonic Lifting Body To Space: Featuring The FDL-5

A 747 with a twist,
A hot rod in the sky,
The Air Force Sortie Space System,
A concept that did fly.

With liquid oxygen and hydrogen,
Stored deep in its hold,
This jumbo jet would soar,
With a story yet untold.

With drop tanks and a space vehicle,
Attached to its back,
This bird would fly to the stars,
On a mission to track.

But alas, its performance,
And daunting tech on display,
The concept never took off,
And quietly flew away.

But in the annals of history,
It lives on in the mind,
A dream of what could have been,
A rocket of a different kind.

In the 1960s, Lockheed and the U.S. Air Force's Flight Dynamics Laboratory (FDL) explored several design concepts for hypersonic flight. Three principal vehicles, the FDL-5, FDL-6, and FDL-7, were based on 70-degree triangles and had different designs. The FDL-5 had variable-geometry wings for controlled landings, and one proposal called for it to be carried aloft by a C-5 Galaxy transport and then released at high altitudes. The Air Force Rocket Propulsion Laboratory also outlined an "Air Force Sortie Space System" that had three major parts: a launch platform, drop tanks, and a space vehicle, which was a 747 with liquid oxygen and liquid hydrogen storage tanks inside its fuselage and hydrogen pumped into afterburners for thrust augmentation. Another option involved a vehicle sized to fit inside the shuttle bay.

[huggy]

A hydrogen afterburning 747 was a actual proposal, but they figured out strapping a RS-25 SSME to the back of the 747 would of been a easier option in order for the 747 to get enough altitude and speed before releasing the Sortie Vehicle.

The Space Review talked about it - https://www.thespacereview.com/article/1608/1
 

[laszlo]

Not up to his usual attention to detail. He misspelled "fuel" in the first caption, had the flag on the right 747 vertical stabilizer backwards and didn't show any scorching of the 747's paint by the lifting body's exhaust.

Also, not sure of the conops, but wouldn't the one being dropped from the C5 be dropped above the cirrus layer instead of below it?

But still an enjoyable watch. If anyone else had made those errors I probably wouldn't have noticed, but this guy has trained me to have high expectations for him.

[Zed_Noir]

.....
Also, not sure of the conops, but wouldn't the one being dropped from the C5 be dropped above the cirrus layer instead of below it?
.....

The C5 would have a reduce service ceiling with a heavy payload and using drogue chute cargo pallet extraction system.

[CameronD]

The C5 would have a reduce service ceiling with a heavy payload and using drogue chute cargo pallet extraction system.

Maybe, but as I see it, it's the only one of the three that's at least potentially workable: the 747 disintegrating under the aeroloads from the sci-fi engines, and the SS Discovery being somewhat out of commission.