X-15: The First Winged Spacecraft

While the Mercury program was receiving all of the attention across the country in the late 1950’s and early 1960’s another program was taking place with little fanfare. Yet, it is this often ignored program that provided the research and know-how that made Mercury and all subsequent space programs possible. The men involved were called test pilots and the machine they flew into space was called the X-15.

The X-15( the X stands for experimental) was a research plane, plain and simple. It’s nearly 200 flights over the 1960’s was never intended to reach the goal of commercial planes or military use; it was intended to push man and machine higher and faster than they had ever gone before in a winged aircraft. To this day, forty years after the program started, some of the pilots involved still hold the fastest speed records (Mach 6) and highest altitude records (354,200 ft. or 67 miles) in an aircraft.

This program was the forefront in hypersonic aerodynamics, winged reentry from space, heat shielding for spacecraft and life support systems.

Although the three X-15 ships aren’t really aircraft, but rocket craft loaded down with fuel and a tiny space up front for a man to sit and try to control the unruly beast. The X-15 looked like a black needle with tiny wings to the rear. Instead of a landing gear it had one wheel under the nose and two skids along the back. While most planes take off from their own power, the X-15 was nestled under the wing of a massive B-52 bomber and taken to an altitude of 45, 000 feet and let loose. This process allowed every ounce of the X-15’s fuel to be used to go faster and climb higher, but also because the X-15 was never designed to take off like a conventional airplane.

Once the X-15 reached the highest limits of Earth, the its designation of airplane becomes hazy. After all, the Air Force considers 50 miles to be the threshold of space and the X-15 exceeded that height several times. Furthermore, as the pilot reached the ballistic arc he became weightless for 3 or 4 minutes. While the plane was at this point the wings and its aerodynamic shape were useless and the plane depended on small reaction controls to maneuver. This system was much like thrusters used on the Space Shuttle today.

The pilots who flew this craft were even dubbed astropilots, but the designation brought a fare share of danger along with it, and the Air Force awarded their own astronaut wings to the few who traveled above 50 miles. NASA, however, considered 62 miles to be space, and only a few reached that threshold by way of the X-15. Only 8 pilots, all of them flying the X-15, have qualified for astronaut wings. Unfortunately, a few of them were civilians at the time and never received their astronaut wings. These pilots, who risked their lives multiple times, deserve recognition for flying in arguably the most succussful aircraft ever flown. All of those who flew 50 miles or higher are listed here:

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