Think about this...The Wright Flyer first flew in 1903, barely able to maintain flight. Just 64 years later this thing does 4520 mph, Mach 6.7. That's absolutely astounding!!

@jackvoss5841

7 ай бұрын

G’day, Chevelle. Good point. The first flight at Kitty Hawk was not as long as the wing span of a B-52. Courtesy of Half Vast Flying

@johnturner4400

7 ай бұрын

It’s amazing what two world wars and a Cold War arms race will do!

@Sniperboy5551

7 ай бұрын

We can all thank war for that rapid technological innovation

@shanent5793

7 ай бұрын

At least the Flyer could kind of get off the ground on its own

@ryanmurphy7782

7 ай бұрын

And think about how flat the curve of achievement has been since

Pete Knight passed away on May 4, 2004. I was living in the High Desert in Southern California. The local news head was, “He Couldn’t out Run Death”. So true for everyone of us. Thanks for the video. Well done. 🥰

@sailingaeolus

7 ай бұрын

Yep, I've had that same thought on my GSX-R 1000 motorcycle. It is brutal and fast...but no outrunning death.

@RussXnimbusX

7 ай бұрын

The Gixxer has taken many lives. Godspeed cowboy.

@sailingaeolus

7 ай бұрын

@@RussXnimbusX I sold it two weeks after buying it. Yeah, death, a felony (for insane speeds) aren't good things. It was an absolutely fabulous machine but a killer and if not that trouble with the law. Thanks for the heads up all the same!

@gitchegumee

7 ай бұрын

Couldn't outrun death, but he went right up to it and slapped it in the nose.

@guitardzan5641

2 ай бұрын

He outran death every time.....except the last time.

As a young child, the X15 captured my imagination and began my love of aircraft.

@joeylawn36111

7 ай бұрын

Same here!

@rlicon1970

7 ай бұрын

Me toooooooooo

@stuartpeacock8257

7 ай бұрын

Same here with Revell’s kit I believe from the late 1950’s

@davebartosh5

7 ай бұрын

For me,it was the SR-71. I later became a pilot. Look at my KZread channel, and I have an Air Combat video.

@brown2889

7 ай бұрын

Still gets me! Now they have built a massive test platform to test new hypersonic aircraft the size of two full sized runways. Forgot the platforms name but it one of the biggest planes in the world.

The X-15 that Pete Knight flew to achieve M6.7 was coated in a Ablative coating. It did not melt around him. It also had a mock scram jet mounted on the rear underside. This did melt off due to drag from the mock jet.

Much of the test data from the X-15 went directly into designing the Space Shuttle. The X-15 was a crucial proof of concept that demonstrated the feasibility of controlled unpowered descents at high speeds from extremely high altitudes. North American Aviation through mergers and acquisitions became Rockwell, the contractor who built the orbiter part of the STS system.

@texaswunderkind

7 ай бұрын

Exactly. Until that point, crewed reentry was done in bell-shaped capsules with ablative surfaces. Not practical for a reusable spaceplane concept that was considered the next big step.

@acmekanik9135

5 ай бұрын

@@texaswunderkind Yet, in 2024 Boeing's latest design is ...well....another bell-shaped capsule with ablative surfaces. How we've progressed.

@billant2

2 ай бұрын

Interestingly at high Mach numbers, the air on the craft's surfaces starts to act like a liquid due to compression, changing the aerodynamics significantly. Therefore it's a challenging engineering to make it work in both sub and super/hypersonic flight.

@wilburfinnigan2142

17 күн бұрын

North American was absorbed into BOEING !!!!!!

Imagine being in SR 71 flying at Mach 3 then being passed by the X 15 going twice the rate at Mach 6.

@RichardinNC1

7 ай бұрын

The X-15 flew for 11 minutes, much of that a non-powered descent. The SR-71 flew an hour between each in-air refueling for 10 hour missions.

@barryclay9084

2 ай бұрын

The SR-71 pilots said "what was that?"

I chatted with Pete about this flight. He said if he 😢known this would be the last flight of the X-15. He would have firewalled the throttle. He still had had more to give.

I am a Sudburian. Our City and INCO developed the ICONel alloys used in the X-15, missiles and other applications that needed light, strong, high temperature materials We were proud that the X-15 went hyoersonic with the alloys we made in 🇨🇦

The X-15 that broke the speed record was the one that was painted with the white anti-heat coating. Despite this coating, some leading edges of the aircraft did indeed partially melt.

@bigdaddy7119

7 ай бұрын

That white coating was actually an ablative coating designed to burn away and protect the aircraft underneath.

@davebartosh5

7 ай бұрын

Yes, and also fun fact...the white patches you can see on the underside of the X-15 in several of these shots is ice forming from the super-cooled fuel under the tanks.

@norbert.kiszka

5 ай бұрын

@@davebartosh5 fuel or water from air?

@davebartosh5

5 ай бұрын

@@norbert.kiszka The fuel is very cold, inside the plane..so ice forms on the fuselage from water in the air.

@norbert.kiszka

5 ай бұрын

@@davebartosh5 but You told "super-cooled fuel" instead of super-cooled water.

The machinery is impressive but it couldn't exist or be used without the sort of people who made this even possible; the right stuff is that difference. I am in awe.

@davebartosh5

7 ай бұрын

Yup. More died than are remembered. Crossfield himself almost bought the farm when the X-15's engine exploded on a ground test that shot him forward it what was left of the plane at over 50 G's.

@bobjones-bt9bh

5 ай бұрын

white men rule

The 1960s and 70s were the golden years of aviation, and not much can change my mind about that.

@codymoe4986

7 ай бұрын

Thanks for letting us know... BTW, I have to go break rocks with a hammer this morning, so I won't have any spare time to attempt to change your mind on this....

@Ivan-pl2it

5 ай бұрын

Planes and fuel were sure cheap then.

My late Dad was one of the lead tooling guys at North American Aviation, and helped repair/rebuild the three X-15s after accidents (and may be in some of the archival footage). I'm amazed it survived that final flight.

@stephenskinner4857

5 ай бұрын

My father Loren Skinner was a high level Tooling Engineer as well. That very company is where I got my start in that same trade as well. Worked with many of the same design group guys on the NASA HiMAT experimental aircraft. -Stephen Skinner

Of all the X-15 flights. The Thermal limits of 1960 tech. Still amazing by any standard to this day.

Remember Major Michael Adams, killed in 15 November 1967 on X-15 flight 191. All this progress takes a toll in human life. We forget that sometimes.

Funny bit about Neil Armstrong: when asked to talk about his most remarkable experience in his whole carrier, he was usually mentioning and keen to talk about the time spent as test pilot on the X-15 program more than his moon landing. A true testimony of the excellence of this vehicle and its program.

@drewfleming7065

7 ай бұрын

Because ne NEVER landed on the moon....It was all faked by the gov....

@jonstephenson609

7 ай бұрын

There is another space plane in the works.. It is called Eagle Flyer

@janetyeoman1544

7 ай бұрын

Explains what he really did, proud of something real. Not the PR stunt.

@aaronisgrate

7 ай бұрын

He was supposed to pilot the X20 Dynasoar as well

@evelynn4273

6 ай бұрын

Or the lack of excellence of the "moon landing"

We now think and marvel at the things that they were able to accomplish with what we would say now were crude instruments and antiquated computers! My hat's off to all the guys who donned those suits and dared to set their fate aside and challenge the speed and altitude! If any of them are still alive and see this, thanks!

@frankd8957

7 ай бұрын

And slide rules.

@kennethross3567

5 ай бұрын

Slide rules! Blows my mind

@cairnex4473

5 ай бұрын

The technology was inferior, but the PEOPLE were better.

I watched the X15 flighs when I was a kid. I remember the landing on one where it broke it's back on landing.😊

The X-15A-2 (56-6671) described here is at the National Museum of the USAF at Wright-Pat AFB. It looks like it's going fast just sitting there. (Well, many things in the museum fit that description, lol.)

@wbnc66

7 ай бұрын

If it were a car itt would get speeding tickets setting still.

Still the fastest manned aircraft ever built and nothing remotely like it has been flown by Russia or China in the last 70 years since X-15 took to the sky.

@chuckaddison5134

7 ай бұрын

They didn't need to. They stole all the information we spent tax dollars to gain. Just like their first Atomic bomb was a dead ringer for for the Little Boy bomb IIRC.

@whosjulez1157

7 ай бұрын

Why should they?

@georggellen9920

7 ай бұрын

@@whosjulez1157 Exactly

@codymoe4986

7 ай бұрын

Was there some sort of competition announced?

@DjDolHaus86

6 ай бұрын

It's sort of like landing people on the moon, it's a cool idea but it's massively expensive and there is little to be gained by doing so

1954 , was a great year, my birthday! And these Pilots, had the "RIGHT STUFF" !!

When i was a boy i watched the X15 on TV and it was cool. I joined the Army and was stationed at Ft. Belvoir and took a trip to the Smithsonian Air and Space museum and what a shock to see an X15 just inside the doorway what a treat.

"Melting" was always a possibility. Since in the late 50's and early 1960's, they were exploring in a completely NEW REALM.

Going from aerodynamic flight control to reaction flight control is/was more tricky and dangerous than many likely realize! The "Cue Ball" in the nose is interesting as well.

@robertsmith2956

6 ай бұрын

going the other way when the computer was lying to you didn't help the space shuttle pilots either.

Man.....that had to be rhe craziest ride in history! HOOOO LAD! The flier was so damn spicey it was meltn in atmoshpere from just air friction.

Ever since I was a kid, the X15 was always one of my favorite aircraft. Thanks for highlighting this amazing piece of technology.

@fanatamon

5 ай бұрын

Glamorous Glennis for me.

Breaking the sound barrier does NOT ‘defy the laws of physics.’ 🤔

@nichigton7878

7 ай бұрын

When you're America, stolen the designs from Britain, and have to use 4 rockets and drop from a plane, because you don't have the technology for the jet engine the British were planning on using, then I'd say they broken pretty much every rule book to break the sound barrier in a very dirty and non practical way.

@darksu6947

7 ай бұрын

​@@nichigton7878England would be speaking German right now if 'Murica didn't save them from Mr. Mustache.

@nichigton7878

7 ай бұрын

@@darksu6947 so you're also proving that you know little about the history of WW2, given by the time American troops entered in the War, the British had turned the tried in North Africa, the Soviets had turned the tied and checked the Germans in Russia, and the Japanese had been checked and stopped by the British/Commonwealth Troops in Asia. Britain & the Commonwealth also ran the Atomic Bomb research project which was handed over to the US and became the allied Manhattan Project. Had the Americans not been given the research and the research team, the Americans would have been starting from scratch and been years behind the British/Commonwealth team and the Germans. Had the US not had the Royal Navy Pacific Fleet they wouldn't have been able to fight the Japanese and retake Philippines and all the other islands. Without the Royal Navy dominating the surface sea war, the US Navy (being about the 7 or 8 largest navy at the start of the war) wouldn't have done much against Japanese or German fleets. The US didn't aid Britain in 39 or 40, it came into the war in 41. By then a lot had been done by Britain and her allies to ensure Victory.

@russell7852

7 ай бұрын

In that time, that was a theoretical risk of the aircraft and pilot that a manned aircraft couldn't fly that fast and be controlled or safe.

@JohnSmith-rq8hw

7 ай бұрын

@@nichigton7878 you’re just upset that some colonial farmers won the revolutionary war against ‘Great’ Britain.

One of my 1st small models I made when I was a very young child starting to learn glue modeling. Great aircraft. 👍😊

Strap a rocket to your back and hold the stick for your dear life. These guys were real pilots!

There is also one on display at Wright Patt AFB Museum in Dayton , Ohio...my wife and I got to see it and the SR-71...what a great day that was !!

Thank you for a great video. At 8:55 astronaut Bill Dana's name sounded like dān, but should be pronounced dānuh. I worked at the NASA Armstrong Flight Research Center when it was known as the NASA Flight Research Center from the late 60's to the early 80's. On one occasion, Bill and I spent an evening as science fair judges at one of the public schools in Tehachapi, CA. In spite of his fame as a test pilot, he was very unassuming and pleasant.

“Destroyed itself?” More like made the ultimate sacrifice for science!!

@joeylawn36111

8 ай бұрын

There was one X-15 that was severely damaged upon landing (bent in the middle, shown at 7:46) Plus, one of the three planes broke apart mid-flight, sadly killing the pilot.

@dentalnovember

7 ай бұрын

There was also the one that blew up on the ground during an engine test.

The 104 was simply known as a rocket engine with wings

@sim.frischh9781

8 ай бұрын

Yes, the "missile with a man in it". Though that design had its very own unique bunch of, partially, severe issues. Doesn´t change the fact that it DID leave its impact on military aviation history.

@flickingbollocks5542

7 ай бұрын

WIDOW MAKER

@sim.frischh9781

7 ай бұрын

@@flickingbollocks5542 Yes, that was one of the issues...

@thewatcher5271

7 ай бұрын

You're Right & It Really Wasn't Successful In The Military Role It Was Designed For.@@flickingbollocks5542

@Tommy-he7dx

7 ай бұрын

It was known as "A Flying Coffin" in Europe.......history shown that VERY large envelopes of cash was passed to people of influence in Europe, and around the world, by Lockheed "Influencers"......it makes you wonder what goes on today doesn't it :)

I live local to the national museum of the us Air Force and the x-15 is one of my favorites along with the A-12 and the XB-70.

I went to the Smithsonian when I was 12. I didn't even know what I was looking at. Kind of makes me sick that I haven't been able to go back since then.

loved making X-15 Estes rockets in the 1970's as a kid!

Some years ago i´ve seen a vid on the X15 in a concrete engine testbed with failing booster and then exploding. The pictures were overdubbed with the voice of the Pilot stating: "it was the biggest bang i ever heard in my life". Filmed from the nearby testbunker you could see him with his cockpit shot away in the desert.

Triple 6 on the tailfin. That's an interesting choice especially since the plane was up in the "heavens"

@joesignoretti9039

7 ай бұрын

The whole project was about defiance of what was thought to be man's limit at the time.

Excellent recap and narration. Well done, Sir!

There was an X-15 on display at the Kern County Fair (Edwards Air Force Base is mostly in Kern County). I was pretty young but knew something about aircraft. I didn't believe it was the real thing because the vertical stabilizer was really thick at the rear. It turns out, that's the way they are.

Based on the thrust of the XLR-99, and the size and weight of the X-15, it might be described as a V-2 with wings!

@robertbeirne9813

7 ай бұрын

Wings and more significantly, a cockpit

The F104 had 1 of what the F4 phantom has 2 of for an engine.

@laurencek.1580

7 ай бұрын

The brick that could fly. Making the F4 more stable with a better wing configuration.

The literal definition of a missile with a man in it. That video of it being mounted on a wing of a mothership will live rent free in my head for months.

I did not hear the audio yet but, the impressive part is not just the object but the team that worked behind it and moving forward.

Very good documentary about the X-15 called "The Rocket Pilots" can be seen on KZread

Amazing! Well done. Thanks for sharing.

As a kid, my father worked at the Lockheed Skunkworks. I remember hearing sonic booms frequently then they suddenly stopped. Probably some old ladies complained about them. I thought they were cool and were only far-off booms, far from hearing damaging. Years ago, my ex-wife and I were driving along a remote desert road that was sparsely traveled. I had an F-18 come down and turn over me only a few hundred yards off the ground. The wind blast knocked my car over several feet, but I thought it was fantastic. He/she was probably using me for target practice, or just playing around. Years ago, I was at the top of a small mountain with my brother, and an A-10 buzzed us. It must have been traveling much slower because I remember no wind blast and the plane was very close.

Happy Holidays to you Dark Skies . May 2024 be your best year ever.

I've seen some of the pictures of that flight, absolutely amazing some of the external things like pitot tubes, antennas were melted. If you read Brian Shul's book "Sled Driver" and pay particular attention to the part where he out ran missiles over Libya the SR was pretty awesome as well. FLY NAVY!!!

While still in the possession of North American Aircraft, Scott Crossfield was strapped into the cockpit of the X-15 in a test stand. They were testing the then-new One Million Horsepower rocket engine. Crossfield shut the engine down after a test run and when he reset the ignition system, the engine exploded, blew the X-15 in half and shoved the cockpit part of the fuselage 15 feet forward. Crossfield later commented "It was like being in the sun, everything around me was orange.

@romanroad483

6 ай бұрын

After this event Crossfield gave an interview to a news reporter. He said he had not been injured but his pants got wet from the water used to extinguish the fire. Next day the headlines said "X 15 explodes, pilot wets pants".

@Dartman6

6 ай бұрын

@@romanroad483 Right!

Thanks, Dark Skies.

Thanks. I had a mental flashback to my childhood at 1:06, as that aircraft that was shown was one of my favourite models way, way, back then! It is still locked up in those brain neural connections. It's nice to know I still have some left at my age. 😂

I believe Bob Hoover was also involved in the flight testing of the X-15. He was an Experimental Aircraft Test Pilot for North American Aviation at the time they developed the X-15. Hoover also went on to test the OV-10 Bronco for North American and was heavily involved in the development of the Bronco.

@martcon6757

7 ай бұрын

He isn't mentioned in any flight records I have and I've a full list of every drop made including aborts.

@joevanseeters2873

7 ай бұрын

@@martcon6757 He may not have flown it? Unsure. I know he was with North American Aviation as a Chief Test Pilot at the time they were developing the X-15.

@x15galmichelleevans

5 ай бұрын

There were 12 pilots who flew the X-15 from NASA, the US Air Force, and the US, Navy. Bob Hoover was not one of those pilots, and was not involved in any other way with the X-15.

"at a millisecond before 2:32PM" I couldn't listen anymore after @0:05🤣😂🤣

I was in grade school when the X-15’s were flying. They caught my imagination!

There used to be piece of the X-15 windshield at the San Diego Air and space museum and it might still be there... it was several inches thick and partially melted from the intense heat 🤯

@x15galmichelleevans

5 ай бұрын

The cockpit windows on the never melted during any flight. There were several flights where either inner or outer panes of the windows cracked, but never melted.

Great video,and narration.

Do you remember the Discovery Channel show "Wings" from the 90s? Well it was awesome, and so is your content!

His pronunciation of Inconel cracks me up. All jokes aside, great video!!!

Well done gentleman.

Its unbelievable that Wilbur Wright was alive when the X 1 was built and then it did over 1000 mph .

@SP00KYSH00T3R

7 ай бұрын

Wrong

@pal6636

7 ай бұрын

@@SP00KYSH00T3R Wright !

@joesignoretti9039

7 ай бұрын

Wilbur Wright died on May 30, 1912.

@Andrew_Fernie

7 ай бұрын

He was there watching the flight with Leonardo da Vinci

@pal6636

7 ай бұрын

Meant Orville. But you get the point .

As a young boy, I wrote to NASA to get the poster of the X 15. I taped it to my wall when it arrived. I remember often looking at the shiny rear rocket nozzle of that aviation marvel. ❤

The X-1 is now in the Steven F. Udvar-Hazy Center (part of the Smithsonian) and you can see as well another X-15 in the national airforce museum, that one it’s the one that Neil Armstrong flew

Good. Thanks. Merry Christmas.

amazing video

I Luv the fact that all Engineers were using Slide rules back then. Computers . . . What's That ? The Texas Instruments T1 calculator didn't materialize until 1967 and could only do Arithmetic. It wasn't until 72 when their first handheld came out, the T1-2500 Datamath, that could do limited Math as well. Anyways, they don't make Engineers like they used to, no wonder it's taken so long to get back into Space. Neil Armstrong was also certificated to fly the B-52. And, I wouldn't be surprised in the least to find out that Lockheed Martin or DARPA have produced a Hypersonic Piloted A/C that makes Mach 7.0 or higher.

@Iam_Dunn

7 ай бұрын

Yeah, I went to University for Aerospace Engineering class ‘92. We were taught how to use a slide rule, but after I graduated I never took it of its case again. :) Now, I have basically the same computing power in my pocket that our CAD mainframe had… LOL :)

@uuzd4s

7 ай бұрын

Yea, there's no real reason to break out the slide rule anymore. My only point was the understanding of the basics of physics can put boots on the Moon, computers cant do that for you. The more you know about the basics of how stuff works, the better a problem solver you'll be. Counting on a "program" or computer to "solve for X" doesn't motivate or stimulate imagination, but having a bit more knowledge than the next guy will.

I worked in engineering at McDonnell Douglas in 1990. An old timer named Joe worked on the X-15. He told me about how one of the landings was very rough and the fuselage broke. He said that the huge wiring harnesses helped hold it together until it stopped. He also had a funny story about seeing the U2 which was secret at the time. He was driven up to a rusty hangar. The driver left him in a bus and drove away in a Jeep. It was in the 40’s and he didn’t have a coat. He walked into the hangar and there was the U2. He turned around and a soldier with a rifle came in and said, “What are you doing here?” “It’s freezing out there.” “Well, get back in the bus. I had to take a piss”. I started my aerospace career at Bell in Niagara Falls in 1983. There were quite a few old timers there. They worked on the X1, the jetpack, tilt rotor, and the Star Wars laser. It was quite a collection of engineers.

@fanatamon

5 ай бұрын

Thats cool as, what was the Star Wars laser?

@jamesdellaneve9005

5 ай бұрын

@@fanatamon It was a high energy chemical laser. 12” diameter beam, 3,000 mile range. It would be aimed by bouncing off of a chrome moly mirror. I left Bell but read about it being tested in White Sands around 7 years later. Boeing put a similar design in a 747 and used a mirror under the nose of the aircraft to shoot missiles. The US signed an agreement with the Soviet Union to not put lasers in space, so the US tested them in aircraft. We (the US) are fielding lasers on trucks now.

@fanatamon

5 ай бұрын

@@jamesdellaneve9005 I’d imagine then they are pretty powerful by now.

@jamesdellaneve9005

5 ай бұрын

@@fanatamon I don’t know. One of the design problems is the size of container that it takes to create such a beam and the energy to make the laser burst. It’s not a steady beam , but a micro burst so powerful that it destroys the missile body/structure.

@wilburfinnigan2142

17 күн бұрын

Bull$hit story of the U2 in the 40's, time line is wrong. U2 fuselage was based on the F104, check the time line !!!

What awesome pure guts it had to take to extend the edge over and over. They don’t make many like them.

You missed one important point: the X-15 didn't have wheels. It had 3 skids/skis because rubber wouldn't've been able to withstand the speed and impact of landing.

"Let's strap a man to a missile" "Yes... what could possibly go wrong??"

I like how he gives a complete summary of what the video is about in the first 20 seconds. No need to watch the rest, I got the gist.

I wonder what if darkstar does exist

@AwesomeNinja1027

8 ай бұрын

Same thing

@JSFGuy

8 ай бұрын

In the form of the Wave Raider and the hypersonic UAVs

@JSFGuy

8 ай бұрын

​@@AwesomeNinja1027this is rocket, not air breathing powered.

@tfsvids4117

8 ай бұрын

@@JSFGuy yup,sr71 and darkstar has ram air engine

Always interesting.

ABSOLUTELY FABULOUS ❤

Awesome!

I was just settling in to this documentary when it ended ☹Another 20 mins would be nice

I think the story is incomplete without mentioning the highest price Michael Adams had to pay for the X15 program development. He was the only pilot to die at the controls of the X15 plane, entering an unrecoverable hypersonic spin.

WOW, he was lucky it wasn't a "millisecond" after 14:32. Phew, that was close.

America is and was the greatest technology giants. One day I will move my family to USA.

There is also one a the Museum of the United States Air Force at Wright-Patterson Air Force Base In Dayton, Ohio

It's been 60 years since the X-15 flew, and manned flight hasn't really exceeded those accomplishments.

They treated the exterior, especially the wings to keep them from burning off. LAX - HOME OF THE X15

"Aviation's ceaseless quest"...which, ironically enough, ceased right after the X-15!

The Right Stuff, baby!

To put it in perspective, bullets move between 600 and 2000 mph, this plane is going 4520 mph. That is fast.

Every time I watch these Dark Skies videos I think of my father who had worked as a senior electronic aerospace engineer for North American Aviation thru the 60's until they got acquisitioned by Rockwell and Boeing.

@johnshields9110

7 ай бұрын

I had a brother in law who helped design the C-130 tail and later the control fins on the Saturn 5 booster. His eye glasses were thick as pop bottles bottoms back in the day. I can still picture him sitting at his drawing board, and staring at the markings on his Pickett slide rule as he added dimensions on his drawings.

*important*... he wasn't doing mach 6.7, he was only doing mach-4.3 over land... the speed of sound at 100kft is actually less than the 677mph ... referring to the mach number is meaningless. The pressure up there is less than 1/6th that of sea level so the end result isn't all that much more impressive than a Foxbat at full tilt at mach 2.5 at 60,000 feet which is taking nearly 5x as much density and quite literally twice the force to the face and moving over land at a greater portion of the X15's velocity than not. Mach value is an incredibly arbitrary number compared to cross-section force... as James May said when driving the Veyron, the wind pressure was equivalent to driving through fruitcake at 250mph at sea level. Why do I mention the Veyron? It applies about 1/500th the thrust the main engine of the X-15 produces and has roughly the same effective wind cross-section.

My favorite model of the 60s

This was X-cellent! :) ❤ from 🇨🇦 eh! :)

As a former Piloting Master Sergeant 3 Star Subsea Sniper Class 2 on detachment to the Himalayan Lunar Nucleur Security Forces, this is an aeroplane.

Thank you for the X-15 review. @5:02 Metal of construction - Inconel X Nickle - Nickel - Chrome alloy => in - co - nel.... short i, long o, short e or schwa (inverted lower case e, uh))

You'd need 600,000 horsepower just to carry the stones on a man bold enough to throttle that beast up.

I can't help but think about the 6 Million Dollar Man when I watched this video. Col. Steve Austin and his Bionic eye, arm and legs. Totally cool show in the 70's. 🙂

You know, maybe this would be better suited to Dark Docs, but I would love to see a video essay on the history of the X plane program. I think there is plenty of history there and different things to discuss.

Fascinating! But it'd be great if you'd include SI units for those of us who aren't from the US. 🙂

Given that we flew hypersonic OVER 55 YEARS AGO, it begs the question - 'What has been developed in over a half century, but remains cloaked in secrecy?'

It’s funny how much the X-15 looks like the middle of the SR71

we had this in the 60s, what do we have now, 60 years later

@texaswunderkind

7 ай бұрын

The Boeing 737 MAX, which can descend into the ground at over 1.2 Mach.

The six million dollar man, used footage of a x 15. Accident, I don’t know when, but was pretty intense footage.

SR71 took some features from this too (like the canopy).

Just a note, there was not a sonic boom heard sprawling across the desert on the first xs-1 flight that broke the sound barrier. The atmospheric conditions of the day and the speeds achieved did not support a boom reaching the ground.