Simon, could you please do a video on Project Manhigh which involved sending men up to 100,000ft under a balloon then having them jump back to Earth. An absolutely incredible feat back in the 1950's!
Can you do a video focused around the history of Air Refueling, specifically the "work horse" of the US Air Force; the KC-135. Think it would be an awesome topic being that "most" of the aircraft you feature rely on Air Refueling to conduct their missions.
I second this. I even live within short driving distance of the main stateside refueling wing base if @megaprojects needs some B-roll or a man on the street&
@@gapratt4955 The XLR-99 engine explosion on the test stand occurred on 8 June 1960. The engine itself was not responsible for the explosion, but instead was from a fuel line. Scotty was in the cockpit wearing only a business suit. When he was taken from the cockpit by the firemen, he got some residuals from the water spray. He famous stated afterward that the headline that day should have been: "Aircraft blows up, pilot wets pants." He, and all the other X-15 pilots were pretty amazing people. It was a great honor to speak with 9 of them, and so many others, when researching my book on the program. Unfortunately, all are gone now except for Joe Engle.
Some extra information on why the blunt nose works - At those hypersonic speeds the heating of the skin of the aircraft isnt "friction", its the air being compressed as it cannot be moved around the aircraft/spacecraft quickly enough. When a fluid is compressed it heats up, these hot compression shockwaves heat the skin via IR radiation. The blunt shape pushes the shockwave boundary further ahead of the vehicle, this achieves two things. Firstly it attenuates the Radiation as it has further to travel providing a reduction into the energy reaching the skin and secondly it encourages more air to begin to move around the aircraft and its compression shockwaves further out which again reduces the compression effects and reducing the potential energy that reaches the skin. The typical "pointy" or sharp nose reduces the shockwave boundary and keeps the air moving around the aircraft much closer, this increases the amount of IR energy reaching the skin.
Actually compressing a fluid causes it to give off energy as heat, the fluid hasn't gotten hotter, the energy it has to dissipate makes its surroundings hotter. I would be interested to learn more about the way the blunt nose works though and the effects you briefly explained. I'm guessing as you've asked you don't know of any qualified you tubers who have covered the topic, if I'm wrong I'd really appreciate it if you could point me in their direction. As good as Simon's videos are he isn't qualified to do more than touch the surface of engineering and scientific subjects. If you want a more in depth video on the rocket motor and some of the other engineering problems then real engineering has done a good video.
Will also second Scott Manley. He's done several videos covering re-entry, thermal protection systems and how the shape of the craft has been designed so the aerodynamics minimises heating while still being stable enough for controlled flight... 😀
Scott Crossfield was a test pilot for the X-15's manufacturer. The Mach 6.7 flight wasn't just for top speed. It was carrying a dummy mockup of a ramjet engine they were planning to test in later flights. However, the hypersonic shock waves flowing off of the dummy ramjet concentrated heat onto the X-15, burning through the iconel skin and doing other damage that required extensive repairs. The dummy ramjet was carried where the lower vertical rudder would have been, and the damage, near the control surfaces, risked the loss of the flight. They didn't resolve those issues before the program was halted. One of the planes pilots, Milton Thompson, wrote a great book on the whole program called "At the Edge of Space." Its chock full of engineering goodness that really communicates the astounding areas of air and space flight the craft explored. Highly recommended reading for those who have an interest.
Great story about the most famous entry in the US X-plane series. Not mentioned, but really should've been, was a 1956 proposal by the Research and Development Command of the US Air Force to put the X-15 into orbit by launching a stripped-down version of the manned vehicle atop three Navajo missiles strapped together for the first stage, a single Navajo missile serving as the second stage, and the specially-built X-15 as the manned third stage that would make a single orbit of the earth. A joint study by the USAF and NACA in 1958 determined that this version, called the X-15B, could be done on a relatively modest price tag of just over $100 million and take 30 months to develop and launch the first man - an American - into space well before the Soviet Union put Yuri Gagarin into his single orbit in April 1961. When NASA was designated to be the agency to handle all US manned space efforts and the call was put out for proposals, the X-15B program became lost among the hundreds of bids that the space agency received. The X-15B was perhaps the greatest "could've been" to never happen in the X-plane's history. It's amazing to think how the US manned space program could've turned out differently if the X-15B had gotten its chance to reach into space. Thanks for watching Nevaprojects - oh, wait a second...
I remember as a youngster in the early 60's being awed by the X-15 and anything space. I'm now 68 and that intrigue has not faded. So looking forward to see what the JWST will discover!
In just 60 years, humanity went from just touching space to landing people on the moon, sending robotic rovers to Mars, flying unmanned craft beyond the solar system and even touching the sun with a probe (NASA's Parker Solar Probe succeeded in doing this just this year). Incredible.
The fastest fixed wing manned aircraft is actually the Space Shuttle. It entered the atmosphere at Mach 25, but it is unpowered flight, i.e., a glider. The X-15 is the fastest manned powered flight (that we know of).
It would probably be the buran since during its first (and final) launch it had jet engines mounted to the rear, also the buran was the soviet version of the space shuttle
@@haz9947 It flew once but was piloted by a computer for reentry and landing, which was very advanced tech back then, so it does not qualify as manned flight, but it was capable of it, so is worth a shout for fastest powered aircraft for sure.
@@haz9947 The Buran did not have jet engines mounted to it during its one and only orbital launch. There was one model of the Buran that did atmospheric test flights that did have jet engines attached, but that never flew into space. The jets were there only for simulating the final minutes of the flight and landing.
When I was 9 years old my great uncle was head weatherman at Edwards AFB he took me to the end of the base where the NASA building was. We walk inside and a man wearing a white lab coat was next to the last operational X15. I got to set in the cockpit and was told DO NOT TOUCH any thing! I believe this is the plane now in the Smithsonian.
As a child whose Father worked on this aircraft at Plant #42 In Palmdale, California we would be marched out of class for the rare launching of this aircraft from its B-52. At Tamararisk School we would assemble, the Teacher would indicate that we should keep our eyes on the B-52’s contrail. At the appropriate moment when we would get fidgety, another contrail would appear alongside that of the B-52, then suddenly stream ahead…and disappear. Great time to be a kid!
I remember hearing about the crash in 1967, we talked about it in school, everyone was really shook up. How could one of OUR pilots get killed like that? We learned a valuable lesson that day. Safety first, risk second.
Funny how less people die when it's safety third. Safety first people always want to rub safety in your face but refuse to look at the statistics. Safety first gets people killed, and destroys progress.
If you put safety ahead of risk, then you'd never get out of bed, let alone blast beyond Mach 6. Maintaining awareness of danger, and handling that risk with intelligence is the way of the bold. It is said... How is it you make smart decisions? Because of experience. How did you get experience? By making dumb decisions. The ideal is to learn from the mistakes of others. And not make them ourselves.
I believe that the max speed run with the ablative coating resulted in the airframe of that particular X-15 being heat damaged to the point it had to be retired.
There was indeed some major heat damage on the 3 October 1967 flight to Mach 6.70 by Pete Knight. The worst of the damage came about because of shock wave impingement from the dummy scramjet, mounted on the lower ventral, to the engine compartment in the main fuselage. It was like a blow torch had been taken to the skin of the X-15. After the flight, ablative was removed, and the damage to the skin was fully repaired. The X-15A-2 however, did not return to flight because of the loss of Mike Adams just 6 weeks after Pete's flight. That accident also resulted in the loss of X-15 no. 3, and it was decided at that point to fly out the last year of the program with only X-15 no. 1.
Can you do the history of The Thunderbirds? Most people don't know the long history of tragedy, beautiful precision and skill. Thank you from the YF-23 guy.
I built a model X-15 when I was in my early teens and is my favorite rocket-plane; and I was disappointed when I first got it cuz I wanted a military plane, but now it's probably my favorite present that I've ever got because of I waited for aerospace technology and setting records that still haven't been broken.
My dad flew test in the private sector after leaving active duty Navy.Joe Engle was a family friend and what a rascal.So fun listening to him and I listened to some X-15 flight tapes of his recently and was just so calm when lighting a rocket under his butt.Just like he was in our house telling tales with mom's martini in his hand.
That's wonderful that your family was friends with Joe Engle. He is indeed a wonderful and generous person, who loves to share stories of test flying, especially the X-15 and the Space Shuttle. It is sad that he is the only one of the 12 X-15 pilots who is still with us. He'll be 92 in 2022.
These stories are one of the biggest reasons I'm glad for part of my life I grew up around Edwards Air Force Base. I had the chance to meet some of these people.
The fixed wing altitude record of the X-15 was broken by SpaceShipOne's final flight on Oct 4, 2004 -- Brian Binnie piloting. X-15 flight 92 reached 108 km. SS1 final flight was 112 km
@@thomasbaker6563 at least in the technical sense, they do qualify as fixed wing aircraft, and due to that, both the American and Soviet shuttles are the fastest and highest flying manned aircraft in history...
You needed to clarify the engine situation. The first flights used 2 XLR 11, nominally 6,000 pounds thrust each, but upgraded to 8,000 pounds each, totalling 16,000. The later XLR 99 was throttleable, 'idling' at 25,000 pounds and maxing at something around 56,000 pounds. I believe it was test pilot Bill Dana who said in an interview that "Test Pilots are not allowed to say they were scared, but, with the new engine, I was very "impressed"!
I’ve seen the one at the Air Force museum in Dayton Ohio and it’s a wee little thing. My fiancée laughed until I explained it’s the fastest thing ever created
Cool video! Love it! Keep it up! Just FYI: the photos of the X-15s in the Air and Space Museum and the National Museum of the Air Force are backwards from the voiceover.
@3:52, I saw what you did there, Simon, with the photo of DeForrest Kelly (Dr. Leonard McCoy) and Gene Roddenberry (creator/producer of Star Trek),... LOL
Super cool. I’m not an expert but I can see a lot of the engineering cues taken from this and implemented into the shuttle. Dropping these Cold War projects again. The A10, not so much a bloated Mega project as it is a reputation and beloved air support asset. Bradley IFV, a ridiculous oil soaked bullet magnet with a unique development process and effect on mechanized warfare
Simon, could you please do a video on Project Manhigh which was a 1950's project that sent balloons carrying men on a platform up to 100,00ft then having the absolute legends/nutters free fall then parachute down. This was to test suits for high altitude ejection for spaceflight or high altitude flights. Colonel Joe Kittinger (one of the participants) would also be worthy of a biographics episode as he had a highly interesting career.
The 1950s really was an incredible time for progress in the field of aviation which resulted in some truly beautiful aesthetically aircraft as well as performance far beyond anything previously thought possible.
It boggles the mind that not more people died. They had the metallurgy, the machining, the hydraulics and the jet technology. But semiconductors were still in their infancy. And electronics were two orders of magnitude larger and heavier than today. Mostly everything was mechanical with crucial readings being analogue circuits. Imagine sitting inside what is basically a two component bomb... and the slowest and weakest piece of the whole works (you) have to make every judgment call... At speeds where if the wrong bolt comes lose it takes 0.1 seconds before you've got high test peroxide, anhydrous ammonia and titanium shards *everywhere* it shouldn't be...
Great post. The machine itself .... a magnificent and successful engineering program. The men Tom Wolfe didn't get to in his epic work "The Right Stuff", Crossfield, Walker, Rushworth, Armstrong, Knight, et.al. Truly pilots of the brethren of the "Right Stuff". All heroes of mine as a young boy. The X-15 program is far too under appreciated in the common vernacular of aviation history. Thank you.
Actually Tom Wolfe did write about the X-15 pilots in his book The Right Stuff. Unfortunately, that aspect of the story was left out of the movie version.
@@scottnj2503 I worked with National Geographic last year when they were doing their new version of The Right Stuff. The original intent had been to bring in the X-15 story as well, but unfortunately it got dropped again, and they just concentrated on the Mercury guys. The scripted show actually strayed way too far from reality as well, but they did have a documentary called "the Real Right Stuff" which was very well done, and I was excited to get a credit for that. The person I worked with at NatGeo really is hoping to do a program about the X-15 at some point, and I very much hope that happens. I have a large trove of material from my X-15 book research, including all my interviews with the pilots and others involved in the program, so it would be great for them to get some recognition for the fantastic research program that they carried off.
@@x15galmichelleevans What a great experience. Are you a professional researcher, journalist or aviation historian? A somewhat irrelevant question asked out of envy. I am an armchair aviation historian. A lifetime of fascination and brief service in Naval aviation. As a boy the Mercury, Gemini, X-15 and Apollo programs written up in NG and Life magazines captured my imagination. I read the words off the pages. I've been subscriber to AW&ST, Air & Space and Air Force magazines for 40+ years. I've also accumulated several hundreds of books on aviation and related subjects. I greatly appreciate the fact you've taken the time to correct me and share your experiences. I wish you all the best in future with aviation history if that's your passion. This RU-vid channel and a couple others do incredible jobs of bringing aviation history to light for the like of me the younger audience. I'm very curious about your research on the X-15. In many ways that program meant more to future of aviation than Apollo.🤓
@@scottnj2503 My background is in aerospace engineering and the Air Force, but nowadays I am a writer, specifically of the book, "The X-15 Rocket Plane, Flying the First Wings into Space." I started the research and interviews for that book back in September 1983, and the book was published by the University of Nebraska Press in April 2013, so 30 years of my life went into that. Because of the time when I started my research, there were still a lot of the X-15 guys around to speak to. I interviewed 9 of the 12 pilots (the other 3 had passed before I started my research), and also spoke with family members for the other pilots, to be able to cover everyone properly. I also talked with flight planners, mechanics, managers, and anyone else I could find, for a total of 70 interviews. I have been deeply honored to be able to give them their voices in my book, especially so now that a large percentage of those I spoke with are no longer around.
The X-15 and the SR-71 will always be in that special class of "You did WHAT without super computers, automated flight correction, GPS, carbon fiber or other modern composite materials?!?"
I could have sworn you already did a Megaprojects on the X-15... Eh what's another episode on the best plane America ever made... Goodness that's what...
Mach 6.72 is a record for the X-15, but the Shuttle (also a fixed wing aircraft) is travelling much faster when is begins re-entry, so I believe this holds the record for the maximum speed for a fixed wing aircraft.
@@codymoe4986 The Shuttle IS powered!! It has 3 engines at the rear which are it's sole power source after the SRBs detach. Admittedly, it's unpowered during landing but the X-15 glided to a landing too!
Isn't the SPACE shuttle a spacecraft, while the X-15 was an AIRcraft, it was designed for in atmosphere flight, while the space shuttle was designed for orbital flight. The only similarities between the two are the fact they both make unpowered landings. In short while you are correct that the space shuttle was much faster, they were designed for two separate, and vastly different environments.
Could you do a video about The Fulton Recovery System. It's were you strap a hot air or helium Ballon to your back and a plane Flys over you and hooks the Ballon and pulls you up into the air and into the plane
Great video! However at 14:27, the two display aircraft are reversed. The one that Simon says is displayed at the Smithsonian is actually the one displayed at the Air Force Museum, and vice versa. Small stuff. I enjoyed the video 🙂
The photo used to intro "The Cockpit" segment... I swear that's DeForest Kelley up front with Gene Roddenberry next to him leaning in towards the cockpit.
Theres nothing u can do abt it now and its just for my sanity but at 14:28 - 14:34 the first picture was at the museum of the USAF and the second picture was at the NAaSM in dc (now at the restoration hanger in NAaSM in va) so u swapped the pictures and names but great video I just had to point it out so it didnt bother me anymore
@3:55 Simon, care to explain why Dr. McCoy (wearing period appropriate clothing) is looking in the cockpit? Dammit, Jim! I'm a doctor, not an aerospace engineer!...
People talk about what they would do with I time machine... I would go back to this era and become a super special pilot and fly on one of these (if I could). I met Neil Armstrong. They say never meet your heroes, but he was different. He was kind. Listened to my questions and answered like I was a capable adult (I was 6, but had won honours for an essay about Halley's Comet while I was in the Young Astronaut program.). Unfortunately, they did not have the program in Australia, so I had to drop out. :(
Good production, as always, but a couple minor corrections. 11:15 The early powerplant wasn't two XLR11 engines, it was eight of them in two clusters of 4 stacked vertically. Since these were not throttleable, the thrust was controlled by firing the engines individually, giving 8 possible steps of thrust. 14:30 You got the photos flipped relative to your description of where the two existing planes are. The first photo is at the USAF museum in Dayton, Ohio and the second one is in the "Milestones of Flight" gallery of the Smithsonian. Incidentally, a full-size fiberglass replica of ship #3 was made and is on display outside the visitor's center at NASA Armstrong (nee Dryden).
Actually the statement that it was two LR-11 rocket engines is correct. A single LR-11 consists of four chambers, not four separate rocket engines. Two LR-11s were stacked on top of each other as the interim rocket power for the X-15 (while awaiting certification of the LR-99), which did have a total of 8 chambers.
@@x15galmichelleevans - OK, I'm glad we got a clarification from the expert. I got the idea for "8-steps of thrust" from your book! For the rest of you, Michelle's book, "The X-15 Rocket Plane, Flying the First Wings into Space" (ISBN 978-0-8032-2840-5), is highly recommended!
@@hagerty1952 Many thanks Jack. Glad you enjoyed the book. You are absolutely correct when you talked about the ability of the LR-11s to step its thrust by using individual chambers. Another interesting fact about the LR-11s used in the X-15 program is that they incorporated an extension nozzle on each chamber, which had the effect of increasing the chamber thrust. The four chambers each has 1,500 lbs of thrust, for a total of 6,000 lbs of thrust per engine in the original configuration. This is what was used in the X-1 that took Chuck Yeager to Mach 1 in 1947. With the extension nozzles in place, the thrust was increased to 2,000 lbs each for a total of 8,000 pounds per 4-chambered engine, so that the X-15, with the twin LR-11s, had a total of 16,000 pounds of thrust. Of course all of that was eclipsed by the nearly 60,000 lbs of thrust of the single-chambered XLR-99 that ultimately took the X-15 to Mach 6.70.
Not quite sure what you mean by mentioning the SpaceX Merlin engines as a comparison, as they don't use hydrogen peroxide to drive their turbopumps. The most obvious engines currently in use are the RD-107A/RD-108A used on the Soyuz 2.1a/b, which do use peroxide. Notably the engine on the Soyuz 2.1v does NOT use this system.
At 3:55, sharp-eyed viewers will notice the two gents nearest the camera are DeForest Kelly (Dr. "Bones" McKoy of Star Trek fame) and Star Treks creator Gene Rodenberry.
