Jet engine 1st stage

(George William Herbert) writes:

A typical rocekt goes almost straight up until it is out of the
atmpsphere then it turns toward horizontal as it accelerates
to orbital speed.

By the way, this statement is wrong. Real space launch start pitching
over as soon as they clear the pad in some cases, and within a km or
two of the ground in all cases. The Space Shuttle, for example,
is only above a 45 degree flight line for the first 115 seconds
of flight, when it's about 25.4 miles altitude and downrange,
shortly before SRB separation. It's about 0.2 mile downrange
by the time it reaches 1 mile altitude, and starts a roll
maneuver as soon as it clears the pad and a pitch nosedown
immediately after the roll maneuver is completed.

Interesting. I didn't know that. Thanks.

Burning going straight up introduces excessive G loading and
does not reduce the peak atmospheric drag pressure enough to
compensate for it.

Maybe another reason is that on a bad day, with this flight profile,
things don't tend to drop back on the heads of the launch complex workforce.

best regards
Patrick

George William Herbert wrote:
wrote:
A typical rocekt goes almost straight up until it is out of the
atmpsphere then it turns toward horizontal as it accelerates
to orbital speed.

By the way, this statement is wrong. Real space launch start pitching
over as soon as they clear the pad in some cases, and within a km or
two of the ground in all cases. The Space Shuttle, for example,

Interestingly - for hypothetical small launchers - GLOW under a ton,
it pretty much is true - you need to go up at under mach 1 to keep drag
losses bearable, at least until out of most of the atmosphere.
This means that the ascent needs to be vertical - or you just spend
extra time climbing.