Bug-Eye Camera Bays

As completed, each X-15 had four "bug-eye" structural camera bays, named for their odd shape.-65 Two were located on top of the fuselage just behind the cockpit, and two were under

the center-of-gravity compartment. Originally, each bay held a 16-mm motion picture camera that ground personnel could aim through a limited field of view to observe the fuselage, wings, or stabilizers. Over the course of the program, researchers used these bays to house a variety of other equipment. Sometimes the bug-eye fairings above the fuselage provided a viewing port for the experiments or simply provided extra volume, and at other times flush plates covered the area. The lower bays were usually faired over later in the flight program with the internal space used by experiments or data recorders.

Although it was not truly an experiment, the National Geographic Society occasionally provided cameras for the upper bug-eye camera bays. Photos looking back at the vertical stabilizer of the X-15 with the curve of the Earth in the background are more often than not ones taken by the Society’s cameras.[66]

Early Experiments

During the early portion of the flight program, various small experiments were piggybacked onto the airplanes as time and space permitted. These usually required little, if any, support from the airplane or pilot during the mission since the flight program was concentrating on acquiring aero – thermo and stability and control data.-67