List of rocket planes

Rocket planes or rocket aircraft can be subdivided by the few rocket powered aircraft to have existed. Some early attempts at flights used engines that might be considered the first 'rocket' powered aircraft. By the time rocket engines were more refined, jet engines had taken over much the roles they might have filled with aircraft. Since most rocket powered planes have limited fuel capacity they also tend to have to function as gliders. The many experimental rocket aircraft have contributed a great deal to aviation. Rocket powered aircraft have a reasonbly bright future in the form of space planes such as those made for the ANSARI X PRIZE. In high-speed ultra fast flight they are experiencing some competition from ramjets however, and in human spaceflight they will always have competition from capsule designs. The majority of rocket planes that have been built have been for experimental use, as interceptor fighters, and space plane. Not all rocket planes are of the conventional takeoff like "normal" aircraft. Some types have been air-launched from another plane, while other types have taken off vertically - nose in the air and tail to the ground ("tail-sitters"). It is also possible, that rocket planes launch vertically without changing their orientation. This is an incomplete listing, loosely chronological sorted by type used for launch (please correct, if necessary), of some aircraft that used rocket propulsion:

Spaceplanes

Spaceplanes are aircraft that are able to reach the edge of space.

• 1945  Germany - A4b winged version of V-2 rocket - unmanned, test flights only
• 1959  United States - X-15 - manned, carried aloft under the wing of a B-52, conducted numerous supersonic and hypersonic flights
• 1981  United States - Space Shuttle - manned (unable to fly unmanned, rocket assisted vertical take-off) lands unpowered
• 1988  Soviet Union - Buran Shuttle - unmanned test flight (designed to be manned, but no need to be manned, rocket assisted vertical take-off)
• 2004  United States - Scaled Composites SpaceShipOne - manned, has a hybrid rocket motor and performed first civilian-funded reusable spacecraft, flights begin with the White Knight lifting SpaceShipOne to about 14 km
• 2006  United States - X-37 - unmanned (technology demonstrator)

Rocket planes with conventional take off

• 1928  Germany Lippisch Ente
• 1929  Germany Opel RAK.1
• 1940  Germany DFS 194 rocket powered glider test plane
• 194x  Germany He 176 rocket powered test plane
• 194x  Germany Me 163 rocket powered fighter (extensive use in World War II)
• 194x  Germany Me 263 also known as Ju 248, development of Me 163
• 1944  Germany DFS 228 rocket powered reconnaissance plane (never flew under power)
• 1945  Japan Mitsubishi J8M, licence-built copy of the Messerschmitt Me 163 "Komet"
• 1946  Soviet Union Mikoyan-Gurevich I-270 strongly reminiscent of the German Messerschmitt Me 263, (some test flights but did not enter operation service)
• 1948  Germany /  Soviet Union DFS 346 approached supersonic speeds
• 1948  Soviet Union Bisnovat 5 Russian design based from earlier captured DFS 346, cancelled (never flew under power)
• 2001  United States EZ-Rocket Customized Rutan Long-EZ, experimental model.

Air launched rocket planes

• 1944  Germany - Selbstopfer - near-suicide mission manned version of the V-1 Flying Bomb to be dropped from a modified Heinkel He 111
• 1945  Japan Ohka - manned air-launched kamikaze aircraft
• 1947  United States Bell X-1 - manned, first plane to break the sound barrier in controlled, level flight
• 1953  United States Douglas D-588-II Skyrocket - manned
• 1955  United States Bell X-2 - manned

Rocket planes taking off vertically

• 1945  Germany - Bachem Ba 349 "Natter" - manned surface-to-air missile (Lothar Sieber)
• 1963  United States - ASSET - unmanned
• 1966  United States - X-23 PRIME - unmanned
• 1982  Soviet Union - BOR-4 - unmanned

Mixed power rocket planes

All conventional take off designs.

• Saunders-Roe SR.53  United Kingdom - manned, mixed power rocket and jet engines.
• Saunders-Roe SR.177  United Kingdom - manned, development of SR.53, project cancelled before first flight
• XF-91 Thunderceptor  United States - manned, mixed power rocket and jet engines
• Douglas Skyrocket  United States - manned, mixed power
• NF-104 Starfighter  United States - manned, mixed power rocket and jet engine

See also

• List of rockets