There is much talk about fifth and sixth generation fighters, of the poachers, of the tip of the current aeronautical industry but, in many ways, you have to look back in time to see certain brands that have not been overcome again since then.
This is the case of the fastest plane in the world that is not, much less, current, but it was the SR-71, Manufactured by the American Lockheed, who crossed the heavens from December 22, 1964 to 1998, when he was removed from the service. During his life in service he was able to fly to Mach 3.32, 3,540 km/ha 24,000 meters, Three times the speed of sound.
And not only that, but, to be exact, there was a much faster aircraft, although there are those who consider it more a rocket than a plane. It is about North American X-15 that It was, in reality, a reusable rocket plane that was part of the X series of experimental aircraft used by the USAF, NASA and the USN. As of today, almost 60 years later, The X-15 still has the speed record on a man-manned flight in the Earth’s atmosphere: EL October 3, 1967, the Air Force pilot William J. “Pete” Knight Guio on the X-15 up to 100,000 feet and launched it until, finally, Mach 6.7, or 7274 kilometers per hour.
And, the race for sending a man to space was in its heyday and the American Air Force did not understand that they were not and did NASA (the naca at that time) who was in charge of that mission.
For this reason, put the first human being in orbit, the X-15 was conceiveda fundamental and significant part of the history of aviation. The objective was to fly high and fast, subjecting the pilots to the conditions that future astronauts would face. He made the first flight crew to the limits of space and was the first piloted plane in the world to reach hypersonic speedsor more than five times the speed of sound.
The X-15 was an important tool for the development of space flights in the 1960s, and the pilots flewing more than 50 miles of altitude in the X-15 obtained astronaut wings.
Three of these devices were built and made 199 flights between 1959 and 1968. The program was a joint project of the Air Force, the NASA and the US of the USA J. Adams died in an accident of X-15 in 1967. Another X-15 pilot, Neil Armstrong, later became the first man to walk on the moon.
Like other rocket airplanes, The X-15 was launched in the air from a “nurse ship” B-52 Stratofortress at about 45,000 feet. Once its powerful rocket was lit, the X-15 rose to the limits of the atmosphere and then slid without engine to land on the dry bed of a lake. Typical flights lasted about 10 minutes.
The X-15 achieved several speed and altitude marks at the beginning of the 1960s, reaching the limit with the outer space (karm line) and obtaining information that would be used in the design of planes and spacecraft later.
Of all the Missions of the X-15, two flights made by the same pilot, also achieved the FAI space flight rating as the 100 km limit passed.
The fuselage was elongated and cylindrical, with raises in the back that gave it a flattened appearance and with heding and ventral wedge -shaped fins. The retractable landing train consisted of a wheel in the nose and two skates. The two XLR-11 engines of the initial model X-15a It provided 36 kn of thrust. The real X-15 engine would be a single XLR-99 with a 254 kN thrust force at sea level and 311 kN in maximum height.
Before 1958, USAF and NACA officers (later, NASA) They discussed an orbital X-15, called X-15B, which would be released to space using a Navajo missile. The idea was discarded When NASA was formed and the Mercury project was approved for a manned space flight.
Even so, The X-15 continued And his first flight was a propulsion test carried out by Scott Crossfield on June 8, 1959, followed by the first flight propelled on September 17. The first flight with the XLR-99 engine was held on November 15, 1960. The flight took place on October 24, 1968.
You can still see two of these devices: one, the second of the three that were manufactured, in the National Museum of the United States Air Force (located at the base of the Wright-Patterson Air Force near Dayton, in Ohio); The second is in the National Air and Space Museum in Washington DCwhile the third was lost in an accident in 1967, in which the USAF test pilot died, Major Michael J. Adams. In 2004 a monument was erected in the place where the cabin was found, near Randsburg.
The altitudes reached by the X-15 remained without being surpassed by a manned plane (354,200 feet, 107,960 meters of altitude, on August 22, 1963), except the space ferry until the third flight of the SpaceShipone in 2004while speeds and altitudes have frequently overcome in unmanned rockets such as pegasus. The Boeing X-43 stator managed to approach Mach 10 on November 16, 2004 at an altitude of 29 km.
In any case, The X-15 still has the speed record in a manned flight: no one has never traveled faster inside the earth’s atmosphere. The X-15 also has the altitude record. On 13 different occasions, the X-15 flew more than 80 kilometers high, thus crossing the official space threshold.