Zoom climb

Before a zoom climb, the aircraft accelerates to a high airspeed at an altitude at which it can operate in sustained level flight.

Some aircraft such as the Lockheed Martin F-22 Raptor can use thrust vectoring to assist in the rapid attitude change required for the maneuver.

The Mach 2 mission took the airplane so high that the standard F-104's engine routinely exceeded its temperature limit and had to be shut down.

[4] On 4 September 1959, a specially modified Sukhoi Su-9 (designated T-431) set a record of 28,852 m (94,659 ft) using a zoom climb.

On 6 December 1959, during the proving phase of the McDonnell Douglas F-4 Phantom II, an early version of the aircraft (the XF4H-1) performed a zoom climb to 30,040 m (98,557 ft) as part of Operation "Top Flight".

On 10 December 1963, flight test pilot Chuck Yeager was nearly killed flying a heavily modified F-104.