Origins of the x-15

Experimental aircraft flourished during the postwar years, but it was hard for them to keep pace with the best jet fighters. The X-l, for instance, was the first piloted aircraft to break the sound barrier. But only six months later, in April 1948, the test pilot George Welch did this in a fighter plane, the XP-86.3 The layout of the XP-86 was more advanced, for it used a swept wing whereas the X-l used a simple straight wing. Moreover, while the X-l was a highly specialized research airplane, the XP-86 was a prototype of an operational fighter.

Much the same happened at Mach 2. The test pilot Scott Crossfield was the first to reach this mark, flying the experimental Douglas Skyrocket in November 1953.4 Just then, Alexander Kartveli of Republic Aviation was well along in crafting the XF-105. The Air Force had ordered 37 of them in March 1953- It first flew in December 1955; in June 1956 an F-105 reached Mach 2.15. It too was an opera­tional fighter, in contrast to the Skyrocket of two and a half years earlier.

Ramjet-powered craft were to do even better. Navaho was to fly near Mach 3- An even more far-reaching prospect was in view at that same Republic Aviation, where Kartveli was working on the XF-103. It was to fly at Mach 3-7 with its own ramjet, nearly 2,500 miles per hour (mph), with a sustained ceiling of 75,000 feet.5

Yet it was already clear that such aircraft were to go forward in their programs without benefit of research aircraft that could lay groundwork. The Bell X-2 was in development as a rocket plane designed to reach Mach 3, but although first thoughts of it dated to 1945, the program encountered serious delays. The airplane did not so much as fly past Mach 1 until 1956.6

Hence in 1951 and 1952, it already was too late to initiate a new program aimed at building an X-plane that could provide timely support for the Navaho and XF – 103- The X-10 supported Navaho from 1954 to 1957, but it used turbojets rather than ramjets and flew at Mach 2.There was no quick and easy way to build aircraft capable of Mach 3, let alone Mach 4; the lagging X-2 was the only airplane that might do this, however belatedly Yet it was already appropriate to look beyond the coming Mach 3 generation and to envision putative successors.

Maxwell Hunter, at Douglas Aircraft, argued that with fighter aircraft on their way to Mach 3, antiaircraft missiles would have to fly at Mach 5 to Mach 10/ In addition, Walter Dornberger, the wartime head of Germany’s rocket program, now was at Bell Aircraft. He was directing studies of Bomi, Bomber Missile, a two – stage fully reusable rocket-powered bomber concept that was to reach 8,450 mph, or Mach 12.8 At Convair, studies of intercontinental missiles included boost-glide concepts with much higher speeds.9 William Dorrance, a company aerodynamicist, had not been free to disclose the classified Atlas concept to NACA but nevertheless declared that data at speeds up to Mach 20 were urgently needed.10 In addition, the Rand Corporation had already published reports that envisioned spacecraft in orbit. The documents proposed that such satellites could serve for weather observation and for military reconnaissance.11

At Bell Aircraft, Robert Woods, a co-founder of the company, took a strong interest in Dornberger’s ideas. Woods had designed the X-l, the X-1A that reached Mach 2.4, and the X-2. He also was a member ofNACAs influential Committee on Aerodynamics. At a meeting of this committee in October 1951, he recommended a feasibility study of a “V-2 research airplane, the objective of which would be to obtain data at extreme altitudes and speeds and to explore the problems of re-entry into the atmosphere.”12 He reiterated this recommendation in a letter to the com­mittee in January 1952. Later that month, he received a memo from Dornberger that outlined an “ionospheric research plane,” capable of reaching altitudes of “more than 75 miles.”13

NACA Headquarters sent copies of these documents to its field centers. This brought responses during May, as several investigators suggested means to enhance the performance of the X-2. The proposals included a rocket-powered carrier air­craft with which this research airplane was to attain “Mach numbers up to almost 10 and an altitude of about 1,000,000 feet,”14 which the X-2 had certainly never been meant to attain. A slightly more practical concept called for flight to 300,000 feet.15 These thoughts were out in the wild blue, but they showed that people at least were ready to think about hypersonic flight.

Accordingly, at a meeting in June 1952, the Committee on Aerodynamics adopted a resolution largely in a form written by another of its members, the Air Force science advisor Albert Lombard:

WHEREAS, The upper stratosphere is the important new flight region for military aircraft in the next decade and certain guided missiles are already under development to fly in the lower portions of this region, and WHEREAS, Flight in the ionosphere and in satellite orbits in outer space has long-term attractiveness to military operations—

RESOLVED, That the NACA Committee on Aerodynamics recommends that (1) the NACA increase its program dealing with problems of unmanned and manned flight in the upper stratosphere at altitudes between 12 and 50 miles, and at Mach numbers between 4 and 10, and (2) the NACA devote a modest effort to problems associated with unmanned and manned flights at altitudes from 50 miles to infinity and at speeds from Mach number 10 to the velocity of escape from the Earth’s gravity.

Three weeks later, in mid-July, the NACA Executive Committee adopted essen­tially the same resolution, thus giving it the force of policy.16

Floyd Thompson, associate director of NACA-Langley, responded by setting up a three-man study team. Their report came out a year later. It showed strong fascina­tion with boost-glide flight, going so far as to propose a commercial aircraft based on a boost-glide Atlas concept that was to match the standard fares of current airliners. On the more immediate matter of a high-speed research airplane, this group took the concept of a boosted X-2 as a point of departure, suggesting that such a vehicle could reach Mach 3-7. Like the million-foot X-2 and the 300,000-foot X-2, this lay beyond its thermal limits. Still, this study pointed clearly toward an uprated X-2 as the next step.17

The Air Force weighed in with its views in October 1953. A report from the Aircraft Panel of its Scientific Advisory Board (SAB) discussed the need for a new research airplane of very high performance. The panelists stated that “the time was ripe” for such a venture and that its feasibility “should be looked into.”18 With this plus the report of the Langley group, the question of such a research plane went on the agenda of the next meeting of NACA’s Interlaboratory Research Airplane Panel. It took place at NACA Headquarters in Washington in February 1954.

It lasted two days. Most discussions centered on current programs, but the issue of a new research plane indeed came up. The participants rejected the concept of an uprated X-2, declaring that it would be too small for use in high-speed studies. They concluded instead “that provision of an entirely new research airplane is desir­able.”19

This decision led quickly to a new round of feasibility studies at each of the four NACA centers: Langley, Ames, Lewis, and the High-Speed Flight Station. The study conducted at Langley was particularly detailed and furnished much of the basis for the eventual design of the X-15- Becker directed the work, taking respon­sibility for trajectories and aerodynamic heating. Maxime Faget addressed issues of propulsion. Three other specialists covered the topics of structures and materials, piloting, configuration, stability, and control.20

A performance analysis defined a loaded weight of 30,000 pounds. Heavier weights did not increase the peak speed by much, whereas smaller concepts showed a marked falloff in this speed. Trajectory studies then showed that this vehicle could reach a range of speeds, from Mach 5 when taking off from the ground to Mach 10 if launched atop a rocket-powered first stage. If dropped from a B-52 carrier, it would attain Mach 6.3.21

Concurrently with this work, prompted by a statement written by Langleys Robert Gilruth, the Air Force’s Aircraft Panel recommended initiation of a research airplane that would reach Mach 5 to 7, along with altitudes of several hundred thou­sand feet. Beckers group selected a goal of Mach 7, noting that this would permit investigation of “extremely wide ranges of operating and heating conditions.” By contrast, a Mach 10 vehicle “would require a much greater expenditure of time and effort” and yet “would add little in the fields of stability, control, piloting problems, and structural heating.”22

A survey of temperature-resistant superalloys brought selection of Inconel X for the primary aircraft structure. This was a proprietary alloy from the firm of Inter­national Nickel, comprising 72.5 percent nickel, 15 percent chromium, 1 percent columbium, and iron as most of the balance. Its principal constituents all counted among the most critical materials used in aircraft construction, being employed in small quantities for turbine blades in jet engines. But Inconel X was unmatched in temperature resistance, holding most of its strength and stiffness at temperatures as high as 1200°F.23

Could a Mach 7 vehicle re-enter the atmosphere without exceeding this tem­perature limit? Becker’s designers initially considered that during reentry, the air­plane should point its nose in the direction of flight. This proved impossible; in Becker’s words, “the dynamic pressures quickly exceeded by large margins the limit of 1,000 pounds per square foot set by structural considerations, and the heating loads became disastrous.”

Becker tried to alleviate these problems by using lift during re-entry. According to his calculations, he obtained more lift by raising the nose—and the problem became far more manageable. He saw that the solution lay in having the plane enter the atmosphere with its nose high, presenting its flat undersurface to the air. It then would lose speed in the upper atmosphere, easing both the overheating and the aerodynamic pressure. The Allen-Eggers paper had been in print for nearly a year, and in Becker’s words, “it became obvious to us that what we were seeing here was a new manifestation of H. J. Allen’s ‘blunt-body’ principle. As we increased the angle of attack, our configuration in effect became more ‘blunt.’” Allen and Eggers had

X-15 skin gauges and design temperatures. Generally, the heaviest gauges were required to meet the most severe temperatures. (NASA)

developed their principle for missile nose cones, but it now proved equally useful when applied to a hypersonic airplane.24

The use of this principle now placed a structural design concept within reach. To address this topic, Norris Dow, the structural analyst, considered the use of a heat-sink structure. This was to use Inconel X skin of heavy gauge to absorb the heat and spread it through this metal so as to lower its temperature. In addition, the skin was to play a structural role. Like other all-metal aircraft, the nascent X-15 was to use stressed-skin construction. This gave the skin an optimized thickness so that it could carry part of the aerodynamic loads, thus reducing the structural weight.

Dow carried through a design exercise in which he initially ignored the issue of heating, laying out a stressed-skin concept built of Inconel X with skin gauges deter­mined only by requirements of mechanical strength and stiffness. A second analysis then took note of the heating, calculating new gauges that would allow the skin to serve as a heat sink. It was clear that if those gauges were large, adding weight to the airplane, then it might be necessary to back off from the Mach 7 goal so as to reduce the input heat load, thereby reducing the required thicknesses.

When Dow made the calculations, he received a welcome surprise. He found that the weight and thickness of a heat-absorbing structure were nearly the same as those of a simple aerodynamic structure! This meant that a hypersonic airplane, designed largely from consideration of aerodynamic loads, could provide heat-sink thermal protection as a bonus. It could do this with little or no additional weight.25

This, more than anything, was the insight that made the X-15 possible. Design­ers such as Dow knew all too well that ordinary aircraft aluminum lost strength beyond Mach 2, due to aerodynamic heating. Yet if hypersonic flight was to mean anything, it meant choosing a goal such as Mach 7 and then reaching this goal through the clever use of available heat-resistant materials. In Becker’s study, the Allen-Eggers blunt-body principle reduced the re-entry heating to a level that Inco­nel X could accommodate.

The putative airplane still faced difficult issues of stability and control. Early in 1954 these topics were in the forefront, for the test pilot Chuck Yeager had nearly crashed when his X-1A fell out of the sky due to a loss of control at Mach 2.44. This problem of high-speed instability reflected the natural instability, at all Mach num­bers, of a simple wing-body vehicle that lacked tail surfaces. Such surfaces worked well at moderate speeds, like the feathers of an arrow, but lost effectiveness with increasing Mach. Yeager’s near-disaster had occurred because he had pushed just beyond a speed limit set by such considerations of stability. These considerations would be far more severe at Mach 7-26

Another Langley aerodynamicist, Charles McLellan, took up this issue by closely examining the airflow around a tail surface at high Mach. He drew on recent experi­mental results from the Langley 11-inch hypersonic tunnel, involving an airfoil with a cross section in the shape of a thin diamond. Analysis had indicated that most of the control effectiveness of this airfoil was generated by its forward wedge-shaped portion. The aft portion contributed little to its overall effectiveness because the pres­sures on that part of the surface were lower. Experimental tests had confirmed this.

McLellan now proposed to respond to the problem of hypersonic stability by using tail surfaces having airfoils that would be wedge-shaped along their entire length. In effect, such a surface would consist of a forward portion extending all the way to the rear. Subsequent tests in the 11-inch tunnel confirmed that this solution worked. Using standard thin airfoils, the new research plane would have needed tail surfaces nearly as large as the wings. The wedge shape, which saw use in the opera­tional X-15, reduced their sizes to those of conventional tails.27

The groups report, dated April 1954, contemplated flight to altitudes as great as 350,000 feet, or 66 miles. (The X-15 went to 354,200 feet in 1963-)28This was well above the sensible atmosphere, well into an altitude range where flight would be bal­listic. This meant that at that early date, Becker’s study was proposing to accomplish piloted flight into space.