At very high speeds the effect of the drag being opposed by the aircraft's thrust, and gravity, is too much for the airframe. The exact speed that this happens depends on the airframe, but any of the prop aircraft should be right on the edge at 500mph in a dive. The jets are more resilient because they're designed to deal with greater thrust loading, but high subsonic speeds will still rip apart a 262. Altitude doesn't really come into it except as a means to accelerate to overspeed, although greater air density at lower altitudes does contribute to greater stresses on the airframe.
Even when airframes were developed that could withstand the strain of Mach 0.9+ there was still the issue of how to control it. The effects that are tearing your aircraft apart are the same ones that saw supersonic flight elude us for so long.
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10-26-2009, 11:06 AM
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