The Fastest (Rocket) Aircraft In The world | X-15 by North American | Upscaled Documentary

the north american x-15 is a hypersonic rocket-powered aircraft it was operated by the united states air force and nasa as part of the x-plane series of experimental aircraft the x-15 set unprecedented speed and altitude records in the 1960s reaching the edge of outer space and returning with valuable data used in aircraft and spacecraft design the x-15's highest speed 4520 miles per hour was achieved on the 3rd of october 1967 when william j knight flew at mach 6.7 at an altitude of over one hundred thousand feet this set the official world record for the highest speed ever recorded by a crude powered aircraft which remains unbroken during the x-15 program twelve pilots threw a combined 199 flights of these eight pilots glue a combined 13 flights which met the air force space flight criterion by exceeding the altitude of 50 miles thus qualifying these pilots as being astronauts the air force pilots qualified for military astronaut wings immediately while the civilian pilots were eventually awarded nasa astronaut wings in 2005 35 years after the last x-15 flights the x-15 was based on a concept study from walter dornberger for the national advisory committee for aeronautics for a hypersonic research aircraft the requests for proposal or rfps were published on the 30th of december 1954 for the airframe and on the 4th of february 1955 for the rocket engine the x-15 was built by two manufacturers north american aviation was contracted for the airframe and reaction motors was contracted for building the engines like many x-series aircraft the x-15 was designed to be carried aloft and drop launched from under the wing of the b-52 mother ship air force nb-52a the high and mighty one and the challenger served as carrier planes for all x-15 flights release of the x-15 from the nb-52a took place at an altitude of about 8.5 miles and a speed of about 500 miles per hour the x-15 fuselage was long and cylindrical with rear fairings that flattened its appearance and thick dorsal and ventral wedge fin stabilizers parts of the fuselage were heat resistant nickel alloy the retractable landing gear comprised in nose wheel carriage and two rear skids the skids did not extend beyond the ventral fin which required the pilot to jettison the lower fin just before landing the lower fin was recovered by parachute [Music] the x-15 was the product of developmental research and changes were made to various systems over the course of the program and between different models the x-15 was operated under several different scenarios including attachment to a launch aircraft drop main engine start and acceleration ballistic flight into thin air space re-entry into thicker air unpowered glide to landing and direct landing without a main engine start as the x-15 also had to be controlled in an environment where there was too little air for aerodynamic flux control surfaces it had a reaction control system known as the rcs that used rocket thrusters there were two different x-15 pilot control setups one used three joysticks and the other one joystick the x-15 type with multiple control sticks for the pilot placed a traditional sender stick between a left three axis joystick that sent commands to the reaction control system and a third joystick on the right used during hygiene maneuvers to augment the center stick in addition to pilot input the x-15 stability augmentation system also known as the sas sent inputs to the aerodynamic controls to help the pilot maintain altitude control the reaction control system also known as the rcs could be operated in two modes manual and automatic the automatic mode used a feature called reaction augmentation system ras that helps stabilize the vehicle at high altitude the ras was typically used for approximately three minutes when x-15 flight before automatic power off [Music] the alternative control setup used the mh-96 flight control system which allowed one joystick in place of three and simplified pilot input the mh96 could automatically blend aerodynamic and rocket controls depending on how effective each system was at controlling the aircraft among the many controls were the rocket engine throttle and a control for jettisoning the ventral tail fit other features of the cockpit included heated windows to prevent icing and a forward headrest for periods of high deceleration the x15 had an ejection seat designed to operate at speeds of up to mach 4 although it was never used during the program in the event of ejection the seat was designed to deploy fins which were used until it reached a safer speed altitude at which to deploy its main parachute pilots wore pressure suits which could be pressurized with nitrogen gas above 35 000 feet in altitude the cockpit was pressurized to 3.5 psi with nitrogen gas while oxygen for breeding was fed separately to the pilot [Music] the initial 24 powered flights used two reaction motor xlr11 liquid propellant rocket engines enhanced to provide a total of sixteen thousand pounds of force as compared to six thousand pounds of force that a single xlr11 provided in 1947 to make the bell x1 the first aircraft to fly faster than the speed of sound the xlr11 used ethyl alcohol and liquid oxygen reaction motors delivered the xlr 99 rocket engine generating 57 thousand pounds of force the remaining 175 flights of the x-15 used xlr 99 engines in a single engine configuration the xlr99 used anhydrous ammonia and liquid oxygen is propellant and hydrogen peroxide to drive the high speed turbo pump that delivered propellants to the engine it could burn 15 000 pounds of propellant in 80 seconds jules bergman titled his book on the program 90 seconds to space to describe the total powered flight time of the aircraft the x-15 reaction control system rcs for maneuvering in the low pressure density environment used high test peroxide htp which decomposes into water and oxygen in the presence of a catalyst and could provide a specific impulse of 140 seconds the htp also fueled the turbo pump for the main engines and auxiliary power units apus additional tanks for helium and liquid nitrogen performed other functions the fuselage interior was purged with helium gas and liquid nitrogen was used as coolant for various systems the x-15 had a thick wedge tail to enable it to fly in a steady manner at hypersonic speeds this produced a significant amount of bass drag at lower speeds the blunt end at the rear of the x-15 could produce as much drag as an entire f-104 starfighter stability at hypersonic speeds was aided by side panels that could be extended from the tail to increase the overall surface area and these panels doubled as air brakes altitudes attained by x-15 aircraft fell short of those at allen shepherds and gus grissoms and project mercury space capsules in 1961 or of any other human spacecraft except a spaceship to a space plane however the x-15 ranks supreme among crude rocket-powered aircraft becoming the world's first operational space plane in the early 1960s before 1958 the usaf and naca officials discussed an orbital x-15 space plane the x-15b that would launch into outer space from atop an sm-64 navajo missile this was cancelled when naca became nasa and adopted project mercury instead by 1959 the boeing x-20 dinosaur space glider program was to become the usaf's preferred means for launching military accrued spacecraft into orbit this program was cancelled in the early 1960s before an operational vehicle could be built various configurations of the navajo were considered and another proposal involving a titan one stage the first x-15 flight was an unpowered glide flight by scott crossfield on the 8th of june 1959. crossfield also piloted the first powered flight on the 17th of september 1959 and his first flight with the xlr 99 rocket engine on the 15th of november 1960. both pilots flew the x-15 among these were neil armstrong later a nasa astronaut and the first man to set foot on the moon and joe engel later a commander of nasa space shuttle missions [Music] in july and august 1963 pilot joe walker exceeded 100 kilometers in altitude joining nasa astronauts and soviet cosmonauts as the first human beings to cross that line on their way to outer space the usaf awarded astronaut wings to anyone achieving an altitude of 50 miles while the faa set the limit of space at 100 kilometers in the 1962 proposal nasa considered using the b-52-x15 as a launch platform for a blue scout rocket to place satellites weighing up to 150 pounds into orbit on the 15th of november 1967 us air force test pilot major michael j adams was killed during an x-15 flight he entered a hypersonic spin while descending then oscillated violently as aerodynamic forces increased after re-entry as his aircraft flight control systems operated the control surfaces to their limits acceleration built up beyond belief the airframe broke apart [Music] the second plane x-152 was rebuilt after a landing accident on the 9th of november 1962 which damaged the craft and injured its pilot john mckay the new plane renamed x-15a2 had a 28-inches fuselage extension to carry liquid hydrogen it was lengthened by 2.4 feet and had a pair of auxiliary fuel tanks beneath its fuselage and wings and a complete heat resistant ablative coating was added it took flight for the first time on the 25th of june 1964. it reached its maximum speed of 4520 miles per hour in october 1967 with pilot william pete knight of the united states air force in control despite the fact that it is one of the most celebrated experimental aircraft ever flown most historical writings have always had a rather peculiar blind spot regarding the x-15 program the citation for the 1961 collier trophy for example noted that the vehicle had made invaluable technological contributions to the advancement of flight it also commends the great skill and courage of its test pilots in his letter nominating the program for the award earlier that same year nasa deputy administrator hugh l dryden struck the same general themes albeit in greater detail to the x-15 research airplane team the scientists engineers technicians and pilots of the national aeronautics and space administration the department of defense and north american aviation incorporated for the conception design development construction and flight operation of the x-15 research plane which contributed valuable research information in the supersonic and hypersonic speed regime up to the fringes of space and to have thereby made an outstanding contribution to american leadership in aerospace science and technology and in the operation of manned space flight certainly all of this fame is well deserved considering its technical achievements as well as its contribution to knowledge about the upper atmosphere hypersonics high altitude piloted flight and so on the x-15 clearly stands as one of the most successful research programs in the history of aviation similarly the men who flew the craft into the fringes of space at six times the speed of sound proved themselves time and time again to be extraordinary individuals these elements of the program have been recognized repeatedly with the x-15 and its members receiving 16 awards in addition to the collier trophy very little however has been written about how the program was actually run and virtually nothing has ever been recorded about its overall management counts begin with the national advisory committee for aeronautics naca's decision in the early 1950s to pursue development of a high altitude research plan describe the technical aspects behind the selection of the contractors and then skip over to the october 1958 rollout of the first vehicle this account of the x-15 is unfortunate for a number of reasons to begin with the historical literature laudatory as it has been actually understates the magnitude of the program's accomplishments technical malfunctions delays and cost overruns are a normal part of any cutting-edge research and development program and those in charge of the vehicle's development and operation deserve even more credit than they have received for working around such difficulties their efforts are especially impressive in view of the fact that the x-15 represented the nakas and later nasa's first efforts in managing a large-scale project secondly because most discussions of the x-15 have been so idealized current united states space policy and particularly nasa itself have sometimes suffered by comparison for years observers have contrasted the cost reliability and performance of the x-15 with the ongoing problems of the space shuttle fleet since the history of the shuttle's development has been explored rather thoroughly the extent to which such comparisons are warranted can only be determined by examining the full history of the earlier program in greater detail finally a full understanding of the x-15's administrative and managerial history can provide some important insights into the problems of the united states space program given that practically all the vehicle is known for today is its superb design it is hardly surprising that pilots and engineers who speak of the quote-unquote lessons learned from the x-15 experience confine themselves exclusively to technical questions the original mission of the x-15 was to explore the phenomena associated with hypersonic flight three of the rocket planes were built by north american aviation corporation each was constructed out of a newly developed nickel alloy known as inconel x and measured 15 meters long with a wingspan of nearly 7 meters missions took place within the specially constructed high test range an aerodynamic corridor that stretched 780 kilometers from utah across the nevada and california deserts all the way to edwards air force base complete with radar tracking stations and emergency landings lights during a typical mission the x-15 vehicle was carried to an altitude of 14 kilometers by a modified b-52 of which two were built and released the single pilot would ignite the xlr 99 engine which would burn for approximately 90 seconds accelerating to an average speed of mach 5 after flying a parabolic trajectory into the upper atmosphere the pilot would bring the craft in for a glide landing on the rogers dry lake bed at edwards by early 1954 the agency had identified four technical areas of concern the materials and structures needed to resist the high temperatures of re-entry a better understanding of aerodynamics operating at hypersonic speeds systems to maintain vehicle stability and control and the ability of pilots to work effectively in space environment the naka's langley aeronautical laboratory ames aeronautical laboratory and the high-speed flight station began studying the feasibility of developing a research airplane capable of exploring these critical issues by the middle of the year naka engineers had settled upon the basic design configurations for a craft capable of speeds up to 6 600 feet per second mach 6 at an altitude in excess of 250 000 feet the agency quickly realized that developing such a plane would be too large and expensive and entertaining for naka alone accordingly in july 1954 officials met with representatives of the air force and the navy both of which were considering developing similar vehicles and saw naca's proposal as a reasonable compromise thus in december of 1954 representatives from naca the air force and the navy signed a memorandum of understanding or mou for the development and testing of a winged hypersonic vehicle the mou called for naca to have technical control over the project and for the air force and navy to fund the design and construction phases under air force supervision after contractor testing was completed the vehicle will be turned over to naka which would conduct the actual flight tests the navy was in charge of the simulation and training portions of the program an inter-agency body the research airplane committee known by participants as the x-15 committee consisting of representatives from each of the sponsoring organizations was formally in charge of supervising the project although it appears to have played a largely symbolic role on january 17th of 1955 the plane was officially designated the x-15 the air force sent out invitation to bid letters to 12 prospective contractors on december 30th 1954 a bidder's conference was held at wright-patterson air force base on january 18 1955 proposals were received from four companies by august the air force's right air development center and naka had concluded the north american aviation's proposal had the greatest merit negotiations with north american were stalled project managers agreed to extend the program from 30 to 38 months and in november following price negotiations the air material command director of procurement production issued the formal contract letter to north american for the development and construction of three x-15 aircraft separate invitations to bid were issued to four potential engine contractors in 1955 and the final contract for the x-15 engine the xlr 99 was issued to reaction motors on september 7 1956 by mid-1958 when it became clear that the xlr 99 would not be ready in time for the first round of test flights air force project managers directed that two smaller xlr11 engines also built by reaction motors be used for the initial tests construction on the first x-15 began in september 1957. it was delivered without the xlr 99 engine to the flight test center at edwards on october 17 1958 the legendary scott crossfield an engineering test pilot for north american who had earlier been a navy pilot naca research engineer flew the contractor demonstration flights including the first captive flight on march 10 1959 the first glide flight on june 8 and the first powered flight with the xlr11 engines on september 17th the first government mission with nasa pilot joseph a walker took place on march 25 1960. crossfield made the first test flight with the xlr 99 engine on november 15 1960. by the end of 1961 the x-15 had achieved its design goal of mach 6 and had achieved altitudes in excess of 200 000 feet on august 22nd 1963 walker achieved an altitude record for piloted aircraft taking the x-15 to 354 000 feet more than 67 miles on october 3rd 1967 captain william j pete knight set a world speed record of 4520 miles per hour mach 6.7 which would stand until the first mission of the space shuttle columbia in 1981. in march 1962 the x-15 committee approved an x-15 follow-on program a series of flights in which the vehicle was converted into a test bed for use in a variety of scientific observations and technological development projects these flights produced a wealth of scientific information in such areas as space science solar spectrum measurements micro meteorite research ultraviolet stellar photography atmospheric density measurements high altitude mapping and others the final flight of the x-15 program the 199th took place on october 24th 1968. most of those involved with the project had expected that work with the x-15 would lead directly to an even more ambitious aircraft the x-20 or dinosaur short for dynamic soaring vehicle which would actually fly to and from earth orbit that project however was cancelled in the 1960s it would not be until the space shuttle program that nasa would turn to the use of weed vehicles for pilot in space flight the navy's portion of the program pilot training marked the first extensive use of motion simulators such as its human centrifuge at the naval air development center in johns though pennsylvania given the magnitude of its objectives as well as the vehicle's sheer complexity the total development time of five years from project approval to first powered flight and two years from construction start is really quite impressive the estimated cost of the program appears similarly modest particularly when compared to space-related projects that followed the program's total cost including development and eight years of operations are usually estimated at 300 million dollars in 1969 that is each flight is estimated to have costed roughly six hundred thousand dollars using all three aircraft nasa was able to fly an average of four missions per month more important the program had an exceptionally low casualty rate in november 1962 the landing gear on craft number two collapsed flipping the vehicle over on its back and injuring pilot jack mckay who recovered and was able to fly the x-15 again on november 15 1967 pilot mike adams was killed in a crash that destroyed craft number three these tragedies notwithstanding for nearly 200 missions in high performance aircraft operating in the fastest speeds ever attained in a region of the upper atmosphere about which little was known the x-15s record for safety and reliability was really quite extraordinary indeed the most common reason for mission delays and aborts was weather which had to be clear along the entire high test corridor finally the program captured the popular imagination at a time when many americans and much of the world believed that the united states had fallen behind in the space race with the soviet union public interest in media coverage of the initial flights was quite high although it dissipated quickly after the beginning of the project mercury nevertheless the success of the x-15 provided the first tangible evidence to the country after sputnik and vandar that american science and technology were on par with that of the soviet union even tinder ideal conditions a successful r d program of the scope of the x-15 represents an extraordinary managerial challenge in addition to the sheer complexity of the technology project officials had to overcome a number of unique administrative difficulties as already noted this was nasa's first foray into full-scale project management as a program the x-15 involved far more than development and flying of the aircraft itself the x-15 was never forced through in-depth hearings before congressional committees or protracted negotiations with the bureau of the budget as it was then known led alone subjected to outside scrutiny each year of its existence although responsibility for the project was spread across a number of government agencies and private firms these actors the military the naka the nasa and the area space contractors represented a fairly uniform set of concerns all wish to build a high-altitude hypersonic experimental aircraft and there was a substantial agreement on what specific design and performance criteria the vehicle was to meet this ensured that the major design decisions on the project would be made primarily according to technical rather than political or economic considerations this is most cleverly evident with regard to the question of the program's original cost estimates and time frame it is seldom acknowledged in the historical literature but the exetive team program was a victim of what has become a fairly common occurrence in the u.s space program namely substantial delays and overruns 300 million dollars does seem small in comparison to the cost of say apollo or the shuttle but it is still seven times the original estimate of 42 million the final development cost of the engine alone were more than 68 million plus a 6 million fee to reaction motors a 10-fold increase over what was expected when the project began in addition the complete vehicle including the large engine was ready for flight more than two years behind schedule despite all of this development during the 1955-1950 period was never held up by a lack of funds although in some years needed funding did not come through until the last minute after the launch of the sputnik one in 1957 interest in the project on the part of the military political leaders and public at large grew rapidly as already noted media coverage of the first flights was the most intense ever seen in edwards and even led to some public reaction mix-ups between nasa and the air force once the first mercury flights got underway public attention shifted to events at cape canaveral this might however have ultimately worked to the program's benefit a major contributor to the x-15 success over the long run was its emphasis on incremental development and its use in highly specialized scientific and technical research as experience with many later space projects including apollo after apollo 11 the shuttle etc has shown the general public tends to lose interest and appears as though the x-15 got a needed boost to public fanfare at precisely the right point in its history the later development in early flight test usage and then became regarded as a low-key effort worthy of only occasional interest just as it was entering its less quote-unquote flashy research phase these shifts in external perception probably could not have been planned any better as seen repeatedly in the case of the xlr 99 as well as in actual flight operations project officials from both the air force and nasa were never hesitant to point out and more importantly work to correct potential or actual technical flaws even when this resulted in increased costs recently critics of the shuttle program have accused nasa of ignoring or even covering up such problems for fear of the political ramifications conventional wisdom holds that a joint project ought to have each participant's roles clearly articulated one of the more striking features of the x-15 mou however is that the division of responsibility for the craft's design eg that naka had quote unquote technical control under the air force's quote unquote supervision does not seem to be all that well spelled out such ambiguity is almost always a potential source of trouble for any joint project particularly imbued the fact that the air force was providing the bulk of the program's funding as was noted earlier the interagency x-15 committee was formally in charge of the project but it does not appear that this body had much involvement in day-to-day decision-making or unsettling disputes among the participants one observer has described its role as that of offering high-level sanction to lower level decisions there were exceptions on one occasion when the air force had started a protest over building the high test range only to hand it over to naka like the x-15 aircraft itself the committee's endorsement of the original agreement served to end the dispute for most other areas of potential conflict however there is no evidence that the x-16 committee ever played any substantive role the situation was further complicated by the fact that responsibility for the development and manufacturing of the x-15 systems was spread across an exceedingly large number of contractors and subcontractors these included not only north american aviation and reaction motors but also general electric which was responsible for the auxiliary power units david clark company developer of the pressurization suit and international nickel company creator of the incannel x nickel alloy for the fuselage bell aircraft supplier of the ballistic control rockets sperry gyroscope developer of the infight electronic indicator systems and many many others in all more than 300 private firms participated in the project fortunately and surprisingly the internal conflicts that did occur were minor and appear to have had no impact on the program overall early in the design process for example the naka's request for a modification to allow for testing different types of leading edges was rejected by the air force in late 1955 during the negotiations with reaction loaders the navy's bureau of aeronautics made a bid to take over responsibility for the development of the xlr 99 the navy based this claim on the fact that it had been working with reaction motors for the three past years developing the xlr 30 rocket engine the design of which was to serve as the basis of the x-15 power plant the air force rejected the argument citing somewhat ironically the need to keep management responsibility within a single agency finally as already noted in 1955 the air force sought to retain control over the high test range one area of conflict once again between the air force and naca did prove to be rather serious but in some respects may have actually been somewhat beneficial the problem involved the development of the xlr 99 which proved to be the most serious technical and administrative obstacle in the entire program tanaka had already complained to the air force in late 1955 that the procurement process for the engine was taking too long prompting the ladder to write a letter of reassurance then in april 1956 a representative of the lewis laboratory who had visited the reaction motors facility reported the company's efforts on the engine to be quote unquote inadequate on several fronts he felt the development program was already behind schedule and that some of its estimates were too optimistic by as much as a year although it is not clear what immediate impact the report had on the air force project managers subsequent events were to bear out the naka's concerns in august 1936 an air force representative noted in a letter to reaction motors that a test of the engine's thrust chamber which had been scheduled for april had not taken place yet by early 1957 north american had begun to complain about the pace of the engine development the prime contractor found that not only was the program four months behind schedule but that the weight of the entire engine was increasing while its projected performance appeared to be declining the difficulties arising from divided authority can be illustrated by the responses to north americans criticisms in february 1957 two sets of meetings were held between reaction motors personnel and representatives of the air force and the naca and north american for its part the air force appeared to come out of its meeting assured that every effort would be expended to prevent further ungen scheduled slippages to the extent that this claim has any validity the larger question it raises is whether nasa officials are simply more timid now than they were 40 years ago or whether the prevailing political and economic climate creates conditions more conducive to error detection and recovery this is a particularly important point since the claims of some critics of current u.s space policy notwithstanding one of the more interesting aspects of the x-15 program is that far from being substantially different from later nasa enterprises it is in many respects a familiar story rampant cost increases serious delays technical failures and even loss of life to be sure the management of the x-15 was superb particularly given the difficulty of its mission there was some degree of infighting which usually was settled quickly as expected on a project of this nature technical difficulties arose necessitating design compromises additional costs and schedule linkages because the program was surrounded by a supportive political and economic environment however nasa officials and their counterparts in the air force were able to face these problems squarely and develop solutions some of them quite innovative nevertheless given all of the controversy for setting the present u.s space program it is today a cause for wonder that an undertaking that had as many serious problems as the x-fish chain was not only tolerated at the time but is now touted as one of the great aerial space success stories in this context perhaps even more now than then the x-15 deserved the collier trophy as the program for the most outstanding aerospace achievement of its time if you enjoyed this video please remember to like and subscribe and as always thank you for watching [Music] [Music] you

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Keywords: x 15, X-15, x15 jet, x15 plane, x 15 fighter jet, x 15 rocket plane, x-15 rocket plane, north american x-15, usaf x-15, nasa x-15, X15, North American, hypersonic rocket, north american x-15 top speed, nasa x15, hypersonic, rocket plane, fastest aircraft, supersonic plane, Hypersonic aircraft, us air force, hydrogen plane, rocket documentary, aircraft documentary, us hypersonic, Rocket airplane, x-15 documentary, hypersonic aircraft, x15 aircraft, x-15 flight

Id: -auU7XRq30o

Length: 35min 48sec (2148 seconds)

Published: Sat Aug 06 2022