Talk:Drag-reducing aerospike

"Similar systems are also seen on supersonic aircraft."

Name one. Guinnog 21:36, 23 March 2006 (UTC)

isent that a pieto tube?

Updated article
I've updated and expanded this article. I've never been able to find a simple physical description of how an aerospike works but I think my description makes a bit more sense than the previous one which seemed to be confusing a number of different concepts. The name of the article needs to be changed since "drag resistant" doesn't make any sense. Drag is the force arising on a body moving through the air due to the 'resistance' of the air. However, as a recently registered user, Wikipedia won't let me do that just yet.

I've removed the reference to supersonic aircraft as I'm not aware of any that make use of an aerospike. The reason they are used on missiles is due to the more stringent size constraints, such as fitting within a submarines launch tubes. This is less of an issue on aircraft where the external shape can be more optimised with regards to drag. I agree with Guinnog that the previous author is probably confusing the aerospike with the pitot probes that are part of an aircraft's air data system. These tend to be mounted on the nose of prototypes and research aircraft where good quality air data are essential. They are usually moved to a different location on the operational aircraft as a radar won't work very well with a large metal object mounted right in front of it.

RegIP 19:10, 17 August 2006 (UTC)


 * I've changed the title of the page to "drag-reducing aerospike" since this makes considerably more sense, and is closer to the nomenclature typically used in this field.
 * Mark48torpedo (talk) 02:50, 16 June 2015 (UTC)

I don't understand the photo
I don't understand the photo. Where's the aerospike? Is it the tiny little spike at the top of the nose cone? Where's the circle that the article refers to? Can a knowledgeable person clarify this in the photo caption, or provide a better photo or illustration, perhaps? Tempshill (talk) 23:42, 4 September 2008 (UTC)

Updated the photo to a detailed crop of just the aerospike and nosecone. Other candidate photos include a http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Enterprise_free_flight.jpg which clearly shows the aerospike unique to Enterprise, the atmospheric-only test vehicle for the space shuttle program. 98.212.197.213 (talk) 00:27, 18 April 2013 (UTC)


 * All the "candidate" photo of Enterprise clearly shows is a spike protruding from the nose. I seriously doubt Enterprise ever came even close to supersonic speeds, and without reliable sources I'd assume this "spike" to be part of the instrumentation suite. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2001:A60:10B4:8601:224:1DFF:FE77:8DF5 (talk) 12:42, 17 September 2013 (UTC)


 * I concur that the probe is very likly instrumentation, perhaps a pitch/yaw or vibration sensor. Something similar has been used in Australia for testing F-111 swing-wing fighter bombers (now retired) 220  of  Borg 05:16, 13 October 2013 (UTC)e

Removed erroneous claim that the Trident was the first use.
This article previously claimed that the first use of an aerospike to reduce drag was on the Trident missile. I removed that claim, since I think whoever added it was confused. It may be that the Trident was the first to use its peculiar form of aerospike, but aerospikes were used for drag reduction years before Trident. For example, the Mercury spacecraft's escape rocket had an aerospike to reduce drag during launch.

--Colin Douglas Howell (talk) 08:27, 17 May 2009 (UTC)