enjoy..
Posted on 10/25/2008 2:57:11 PM PDT by BenLurkin
EDWARDS AFB - Forty years ago NASA pilot Bill Dana made the final flight of the X-15, marking the end of the line for what many consider to be the most successful research airplane in history.
How the program team responded to this adversity provides lessons for today's research and space exploration efforts, author Dennis Jenkins said Friday.
Jenkins, author of "X-15: Extending the Frontiers of Flight," NASA's definitive history of the program, discussed the trials and triumphs of the X-15 at Dryden Flight Research Center before an appreciative crowd that included many of the program's original participants.
The event marked the Oct. 24 anniversary of Dana's flight, the 199th of the storied test program.
"The X-15 is a program of great significance and great legacy here at the center," said Dryden Director Kevin Petersen. "Dr. Hugh L. Dryden's quote we often use, 'separating the real from the imagined,' was made in reference to the X-15."
Despite its reputation, the program was not perfect.
"They had lots of issues. They started on Day One and they ended on Day Last, since the last (scheduled) flight never got off the ground," Jenkins said.
The last planned flight - to be the 200th - was grounded due to an unusual high desert snowstorm in December 1968. The program's funding ran out at the end of that year.
"It's become a cult airplane," Jenkins said of the rocket-powered X-15.
But because of that cult status as a highly successful research aircraft, many fail to recognize the many troubles overcome along the way.
The aircraft "is unquestionably the most successful of the high-speed X-planes," Jenkins said, providing the only real flight test data base on hypersonic flight, defined as speeds more than five times the speed of sound.
(Excerpt) Read more at avpress.com ...
enjoy..
Quite the plane and program it was.
Nice. Thank you.
(I had the opportunity to meet Pete Knight when he was an elected offical — I was very impressed.)
My favorite plane when I was a kid.
X-15 ping. A great plane
It was quite a ride.
I’m no tinfoil hatter (I prefer felt and the occasional Panama) but I find it a little hard to believe that all the fastest planes in the world (except the unmanned test articles) are in museums.
I’d love to see what they’re working on now.
I’d love to see what they’re working on now
Probably what the drunken poachers out on Thundercrotch Bayou keep reporting as UFO’s.
This is a fine article. Thanks for the ping.
There was a far different political-management climate in those days.
If there had not been an X-15, the SR-71 would still be one of Kelly Johnson’s unfullfilled pipe dreams.
One of the great things about the X-15 program was there was so little money to play with, as opposed to today when the knee jerk reaction to a problem is to throw more $$$ at it. Also, the scientists assigned were well aware that there is much more to learn from what went wrong during a test than what went right.
The US got a tremendous return on the $$$ invested is this little known, often forgotten test aircraft.
Jack.
couple of old topics:
A piece of American history preserved by Germans
American Thinker | November 27, 2008 | Thomas Lifson
Posted on 11/27/2008 3:09:12 PM PST by neverdem
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-bloggers/2139313/posts
Years ago there was a terrific doumentary about the X-15 called “The Rocket Pilots”. I have taped it but of course have lost it by now.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.