In this episode, we are going to talk about “X-15: the fastest manned rocket plane ever” The North American X-15 was a plane unlike any other. Its shaped more like a bullet than a conventional airplane. The aircraft was billed as the U.S.’ first crewed attempt to ply the outer reaches of Earth’s atmosphere and beyond. Even though most Americans alive today have likely never heard of it, it marked 61 years since the X-15’s first powered test flight in California’s high desert. X-15 is rocket-powered research aircraft built in the 1950s by North American Aviation, Inc., for the U.S military and the National Aeronautics and Space Administration in order to gather information on flight conditions beyond the atmosphere. The aircraft was built to find out how aircraft structures, materials, and control surfaces would perform at hypersonic speeds and very high altitudes.
First flown in 1959, the X-15 set separate unofficial altitude and speed records for aircraft during the 1960s almost 108 km above the surface of Earth and 6.7 times the speed of sound. Launched from an in-flight B-52 bomber, the X-15 could not achieve the velocity and altitude needed for orbital flight. Nevertheless, in 199 flights over a 9-year period, the aircraft established an extensive database on transonic and supersonic flights and revealed vital information concerning the upper atmosphere. Of the 12 pilots who flew X-15s, 8 became astronauts including Neil Armstrong. The program has been acknowledged as the most successful flight research program in history, and it helped make human spaceflight possible.

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