Highest altitude achieved by an airplane using air breathing engines?

[drtricky]

So I just set some personal altitude records for an airplane that has only whiplash engines. Does anyone know of altitude records for aircraft with air breathing only engines? I wanna see how well my airplane did.

Edited July 1, 2016 by drtricky

[KerikBalm]

why only whiplash and not rapiers without oxidizer?

[drtricky]

4 minutes ago, KerikBalm said:

why only whiplash and not rapiers without oxidizer?

At the time, I did not realize how much higher the flame-out altitude of rapiers were.

[Fluburtur]

My long range refueling plane cruises at around 18km high at around 1000m/s, but the thing is heavy so it takes a while to get there.

I did some suborbital space jumps with planes but im pretty sure everyone did that, other than that I have a few fighters that can fly between 20 and 25km but the power output is really low at that altitude so for long distance I try to go down to around 15km, pick up speed and go over 26km (when the jets engines cut) and fly with my inertia, then I repeat)

[Overland]

By air breathing would that discount superheating a solid propellant booster to the point of explosion on takeoff to give that extra few thousand feet?

[KerikBalm]

Is overland going to try and get into the stratosphere with a train?

[Adelaar]

My cruise altitudes for Panther driven aircraft lie at around 18 km, and the whiplash driven craft usually cruise at 21-22 km. But I have SSTO's that cruise at 28 km using airbreathing mode on the RAPIERS, but that's only after re-entry and used only to close the distance to KSC should I undershoot my descent path. 

Edit: I'm talking about sustainable altitudes. Of course I can get a Whiplash to 80 km altitude. But that's only a parabolic flight. Same goes for craft that hog around 26 km*, that altitude is unsustainable, hence the 21-22 km flight ceiling.

*Exluding the aforementioned SSTO's

Edited July 1, 2016 by Adelaar

[Bill Phil]

I've made suborbital hoppers using jets, and they could fly at around 25 km or higher under 4x physics warp (this was an older version, back then physics warp in the atmosphere increased the amount of air you got, not sure about now....). They could also get enough velocity to leave the atmosphere, although this was the old atmo.

[drtricky]

15 hours ago, KerikBalm said:

Is overland going to try and get into the stratosphere with a train?

He's not going to try to make it happen, he's going to make it happen BECAUSE IT FRICKIN NEEDS TO HAPPEN! 

 

7 hours ago, Adelaar said:

Edit: I'm talking about sustainable altitudes. Of course I can get a Whiplash to 80 km altitude. But that's only a parabolic flight. Same goes for craft that hog around 26 km*, that altitude is unsustainable, hence the 21-22 km flight ceiling.

*Exluding the aforementioned SSTO's

Oh my, I should have mentioned that I set my personal altitude record with a parabolic flight. Here's my record for reference

[MaverickSawyer]

35 km and accelerating while climbing.

 

Granted, it was with some non-stock engines. But, still under air breathing power. No rockets involved until flameout somewhere north of 37 km.

[Vysionone]

37k with a supersonic plane and Whiplashes.

[Teilnehmer]

Is that about the apoapsis or the flame-out altitude?

Edited July 2, 2016 by Teilnehmer