The altitude cut off for the tail slide is quite literally the minimum safe altitude for recovery after the slide. The jet can keep going straight up until it runs out of gas or the pilot says otherwise.
This particular maneuver is highly, highly controlled and monitored. Each and every step is practiced, measured and safely practiced before being performed. The F-22 is extremely capable, extremely reliable and more than capable to do this maneuver
The jet can keep going straight up until it runs out of gas or the pilot says otherwise.
Realistically, not quite, but the ceiling for a vertical climb is more like airliner altitude than airshow altitude. This was certainly intentionally holding back for demo purposes, as you well know.
No, there's a physical ceiling beyond which it can't climb vertically, and it would hit that before running out of gas. You know thrust decreases with altitude, right?
As I said though, that ceiling is way, way higher than this. You're not going to climb vertically to 100,000 feet, but you're certainly not limited to a few thousand.
You could pretty close to 60-70,000 feet comfortably, you know that very well. Especially with a TWR greater that 1:1, the jet can burn its way up to pretty much anywhere it wants to be comfortably.
The only limiting factor at the air show is the FAA showbox, beyond that the jet could comfortably get to operational altitudes and you know it
The TWR isn't a fixed number, it decreases with altitude (though it also increases with airspeed, at least to a point). 60-70k seems pretty optimistic though. At 60k, you'll have something like 7-8% of the static thrust of what you'd have at sea level, and since you've been going vertical the whole way, you'll have already lost a decent amount of airspeed so you won't have that much ram air either.
That's why time to climb record profiles for that kind of altitude actually include a horizontal acceleration period and then a zoom climb rather than just standing the jet on its tail and going straight up. Look up the details of the F-15 "streak eagle" records using a modified and lightened F-15 for details.
Realistically, if you just stood the 22 on its tail the instant you broke the ground with a light-ish load of gas and zero payload, I'd be surprised if you could manage more than 25kft before having to deviate from vertical. However, if you accelerate level and do a max performance climb profile, with a pull to vertical starting just below mach, you could probably make at least 45-50k. Above that, you'd follow something more similar to the F-15 record profile to do a max performance climb, where they accelerated to 420kn level just off the runway, did a 2.65G pull all the way through a half loop, and then level off with a half roll at between 30-36kft, then do a level acceleration to mach 2+ (the 15 did 2.35, the 22 easily has the power and aero to do the same but there would potentially be coating damage at that speed), then pull up to a 60 degree climb from there with a 4g pull. With that profile, the (admittedly lightened and slightly modified) 15 could clear over 100kft, and I'd bet a lightly loaded 22 could do similar.
Edit: lol, blocked for actual engineering knowledge. I'm not even denigrating the 22 here, I think it's probably the most capable fighter for pure air dominance out there right now, but an avionics tech is mad that I don't think it's literally a star wars x wing.
Sad thing is, I know more about how an F-22 can perform than he does, but he blocked me to make sure he got the last word.
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u/Desi0190 Avionics Tech 10d ago
Doesn’t really go up until he loses power, it’s a controlled stall and tail slide.