The Х-T 5

Across almost half a century, the X-15 program stands out to this day not only for its achievements but for its audacity. At a time when the speed record stood right at Mach 2, the creators of the X-15 aimed for Mach 7—and nearly did it.[1] More­over, the accomplishments of the X-15 contrast with the history of an X-planes program that saw the X-1A and X-2 fall out of the sky due to flight instabilities, and in which the X-3 fell short in speed because it was underpowered.1

The X-15 is all the more remarkable because its only significant source of aero­dynamic data was Becker’s 11-inch hypersonic wind tunnel. Based on that instru­ment alone, the Air Force and NACA set out to challenge the potential difficulties of hypersonic piloted flight. They succeeded, with this aircraft setting speed and altitude marks that were not surpassed until the advent of the space shuttle.

It is true that these agencies worked at a time of rapid advance, when perfor­mance was leaping forward at rates never approached either before or since. Yet there was more to this craft than a can-do spirit. Its designers faced specific technical issues and overcame them well before the first metal was cut.

The X-3 had failed because it proved infeasible to fit it with the powerful tur­bojet engines that it needed. The X-15 was conceived from the start as relying on rocket power, which gave it a very ample reserve.

Flight instability was already recognized as a serious concern. Using Becker’s hypersonic tunnel, the aerodynamicist Charles McLellan showed that the effective­ness of tail surfaces could be greatly increased by designing them with wedge-shaped profiles.2

The X-15 was built particularly to study problems of heating in high-speed flight, and there was the question of whether it might overheat when re-entering the atmosphere following a climb to altitude. Calculations showed that the heating would remain within acceptable bounds if the airplane re-entered with its nose high. This would present its broad underbelly to the oncoming airflow. Here was a new application of the Allen-Eggers blunt-body principle, for an airplane with its nose up effectively became blunt.

The planes designers also benefited from a stroke of serendipity. Like any air­plane, the X-15 was to reduce its weight by using stressed-skin construction; its outer skin was to share structural loads with internal bracing. Knowing the stresses this craft would encounter, the designers produced straightforward calculations to give the requisite skin gauges. A separate set of calculations gave the skin thicknesses that were required for the craft to absorb its heat of re-entry without weakening. The two sets of skin gauges were nearly the same! This meant that the skin could do double duty, bearing stress while absorbing heat. It would not have to thicken excessively, thus adding weight, to cope with the heat.

Yet for all the ingenuity that went into this preliminary design, NACA was a very small tail on a very large dog in those days, and the dog was the Air Force. NACA alone lacked the clout to build anything, which is why one sees military insignia on photos of the X-planes of that era. Fortuitously, two new inventions—the twin – spool and the variable-stator turbojet—were bringing the Air Force face to face with a new era in flight speed. Ramjet engines also were in development, promising still higher speed. The X-15 thus stood to provide flight-test data of the highest impor­tance—and the Air Force grabbed the concept and turned it into reality.