Talk:North American X-15

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There is a problem with intrapage consistency. At the top of the page, the limit of 100km for "space" is attributed to the FAI whereas at the bottom of the page it is attributed to the FAA. Someone needs to sort this out?

Also, the top of the page say 13 flights have made it over 50 miles, but the bottom says 12. Jwolfe 08:11, 3 Jul 2004 (UTC) (the above comment is not mine, just this one).

[edit] Mach # on first flight

There's an error of fact in the last change, about the X-15's first flight making Scott Crossfield the first to go supersonic in a glider. The first flight only had a top speed of Mach 0.79.

However, the Southern California Soaring Society (might have been Association instead of Society) did award a trophy to Crossfield for the fastest glide to a landing from 38,000 feet on that flight. The trophy was a nicely finished and mounted streamlined brick.

Perhaps the author of this note would like to update it.

Another possible notation would be that this was one of only two X-15 flights whose top speed was subsonic. The other was an emergency landing by Forrest Petersen when the engine didn't light -- even then he got to Mach 0.97, almost supersonic in a pure glide. On all other flights the X-15 operated as a motorglider, so it's still fair to say that it was the fastest glider on record until the Space Shuttle's first reentry.

Actually this note is partly a familiarization exercise, I just registered and am checking out details in Wikipedia. That explains some of the text oddities in this note.

--Paul Raveling 07:38, 12 January 2006 (UTC)