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NASA. Number built. 3. The North American X-15 is a hypersonic rocket-powered aircraft operated by the United States Air Force and the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) as part of the X-plane series of experimental aircraft. The X-15 set speed and altitude records in the 1960s, crossing the edge of outer space and returning ...
Twelve pilots flew the X-15 over the course of its career. Scott Crossfield and William Dana flew the X-15 on its first and last free flights, respectively. Joseph Walker set the program's top two altitude records on its 90th and 91st free flights (347,800 and 354,200 feet, respectively), becoming the only pilot to fly past the Kármán line, the 100 kilometer, FAI-recognized boundary of outer ...
The first, the Bell X-1, became well known in 1947 after it became the first aircraft to break the sound barrier in level flight. [7] Later X-planes supported important research in a multitude of aerodynamic and technical fields, but only the North American X-15 rocket plane of the early 1960s achieved comparable fame to that of the X-1.
The Bell X-1 ( Bell Model 44) is a rocket engine–powered aircraft, designated originally as the XS-1, and was a joint National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics – U.S. Army Air Forces – U.S. Air Force supersonic research project built by Bell Aircraft. Conceived during 1944 and designed and built in 1945, it achieved a speed of nearly ...
Joseph Albert Walker (February 20, 1921 – June 8, 1966) ( Capt, USAF) was an American World War II pilot, experimental physicist, NASA test pilot, and astronaut who was the first person to fly an airplane to space. He was one of twelve pilots who flew the North American X-15, an experimental spaceplane jointly operated by the Air Force and NASA.
The Bell X-2 (nicknamed "Starbuster" [1]) was an X-plane research aircraft built to investigate flight characteristics in the Mach 2–3 range. The X-2 was a rocket-powered, swept-wing research aircraft developed jointly in 1945 by Bell Aircraft Corporation, the United States Air Force and the National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics (NACA) to explore aerodynamic problems of supersonic ...
Altogether, he completed 16 captive flights (mated to the B-52 launch aircraft), one glide flight and 13 powered flights in the X-15. The retirement of the X-15 (due to funding cutbacks) after its record-setting Mach 6.70 (4,520 mph) [ 12 ] [ 13 ] flight prompted pilot Pete Knight to remark that he would have pushed it to even faster speeds if ...
Robert Michael White (July 6, 1924 – March 17, 2010) ( Maj Gen, USAF) [2] was an American electrical engineer, test pilot, fighter pilot, and astronaut. [3] [4] He was one of twelve pilots who flew the North American X-15, an experimental spaceplane jointly operated by the Air Force and NASA. As an engineer, he supervised the design and ...