Proteus High Altitude Flight

The Scaled Composites' Proteus is a multipurpose manned platform optimized for high altitude operations.  Recently, Scaled flew the aircraft to over 57,000 ft MSL. Let's see what happened using a KML file from ADS-B Exchange and my Flight Data Processing Toolbox for MATLAB.

The aircraft launched from and recovered to Scaled's base in Mojave, CA. The climb to maximum altitude was one continuous, slow climb which lasted about an hour. Once there, they briefly cruised at the design loiter speed of Mach 0.42. The descent back into Mojave was impressive, at times reaching upwards of 5000 ft/min and -10 deg flight path angle. They finished up the flight with some pattern work.

More information about Proteus can be found in the Payload User's Guide.