Simviation Forums

I've recently downloaded a few "spaceplanes" for FSX, including piglet's Boeing 2707 and some of Bruce Fitzgerald's spacecraft. I've noticed though, that thaey are powered by "jet engines" and thus, at around 45,000 feet they lose power to the point where they can't climb. Fiddling around with the aircraft files in Notepad (as I don't have the SDK and haven't bothered with many FSX utilities) I've been able to set the thrust to insanely high levels, but this only catapults me a little higher to aroung 90,000-100,000 feet, then I stall and fall down to 50,000 or so.

So my question is: Is there a way to set planes to have rocket engines, or change the efficiency of the jets in order to fly up in the low-orbit altitudes FSX has to offer?

I'm already suspecting the answer is a simple "no" (since the spaceplanes are not already equipped to do so) but I'd be thankful for any help anyone can give.

Yes, the simple answer is "No", since FSX does not simulate rocket engines. It's been my experince that increasing thrust mainly increases your acceleration, but your speed will still top out at 2666 TAS, the max that FSX allows.

I modified the Pendercraft Spindrift and can go into a vertical climb to just short of 500,000, but that's purely "ballistic", since you lose aerodynamic control somewhere between 300,000 and 400,000. It will fly at 200,000, but it "wallows".

According to Wiki, true low orbit starts at 130 miles up, or, 868,400 ASL, so, on the list of "fun things to do in FSX, is to use the "Map" and enter an altitude of 900,000 and an airspeed of "0", and let the aircraft drop, and see if you can keep it steady until you start regaining control. If you lose it, you end up corkscrewing a lot, and spend a lot of time falling "up".   FSX does not do "space" or orbits very well.  But, then again, it wasn't really designed to.