While the Blackbird SR-71 was the fastest manned airplane ever created, the fastest manned aircraft title goes to the North American X-15, a rocket plane that flew for the first time on June 8, 1959 released from the NASA NB-52B (below.) On October 1967 it pulverized all records: 4,520 miles per hour (7,274 km/h).
Take-off carried by NASA NB-52B
Release and ignition of rocket
Flight
Landing
Neil Armstrong posing next to the X-15
Ground personnel take care of the X-15 after flight while the NASA NB-52B mothership flights above their heads.
NASA pilot Bill Dana was the last man to fly the X-15 (the 199th flight in the series ) on Oct. 24, 1968.
The record flight
Design changes for the X-15A-2 included two external jettisonable fuel tanks, longer main gear, lengthened and lowered nose gear, fuselage extended 29 inches, improved windshield design, ablative material on the outer skin, a removable right-hand wingtip to accept test materials, removable lower vertical fin to permit installation of ramjet engines, and accommodations for photographic experiments.
After launch from the NASA NB-52B, Air Force Capt. William "Pete" Knight initiates ignition for his record Mach 6.7 (6.7 times the speed of sound) flight on Oct. 3, 1967. The aircraft's special white coating was designed to slowly burn off, or ablate, as it protected the X-15A-2's skin from high heats generated during the flight.
The accidents
The X-15 wasn't free of problems. There were several accidents.
The specs
- Length: 50 feet 9 inches (15.47 meters)
- Wingspan: 22 feet 4 inches (6.81 meters)
- Height: 13 feet 6 inches (4.11 meters)
- Empty weight: 14,600 pounds (6,622 kilograms)
- Loaded weight: 34,000 pounds (15,422 kilograms)
- Powerplant: 1× Thiokol XLR-99 liquid-fuel rocket engine developing 57,850 pounds (257.3 kilonewtons) of thrust
The aircraft spartan cockpit
The Thiokol XLR-99 nozzle.
The X-15 was probably the most important experimental aircraft in the development of hypersonic flight and the American space program. It was a first for a lot of things:
- First application of hypersonic wind tunnel theory on a flight vehicle
- First reusable super alloy structure for the hypersonic flight regime
- First restartable, throttle-controlled and man-rated rocket engine
- Demonstrated pilot's ability to control a rocket-boosted vehicle in exoatmospheric flight
- Demonstrated pilot functions during weightlessness
- First spaceflight stellar navigation system
- First demonstration of piloted, dead-stick (unpowered) landing techniques starting at high altitudes and more than 200 miles (322 kilometers) from the landing site
- Development of wedge-tail vertical stabilizer for hypersonic stability control
- Development of advanced pressure suits
- Use of horizon all-spectrum scanner (an extreme altitude reference)
- First application of the MH-96 adaptive control system that automatically transitioned from conventional flight controls to the reaction control system for high-altitude flight, and back again for descent.
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