Tires may be a factor as are brakes. The Space Shuttle touches down at
200mph and puts a lot of stress on both areas requiring significantly more
maintenance (and a drag chute) than would be acceptable for most
planes....although airliners/transports also rely on reverse thrust to
decelerate.......but aerodynamics probably has at least as much to do with
it. All these aircraft most frequently operate in the high subsonic
regions and therefore have similar wing loading.


"boomer" wrote in message
...
why does it seem that most modern jet aircraft unstick at around 160kts?
Fighters, bombers, transports all of them frequently seem to takeoff at
160kts, is it a tire speed limit kind of thing?