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).

Contents

[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)

[edit] Measurement Units

I only see the speed and altitude listed in Metric in the Record Flights and Pilots sections. I know that most of the world uses the Metric system, but since this is an American aircraft, it stands to reason that the performance is listed in our units, too. TwinTurboZ 05:07, 8 February 2007 (UTC)


[edit] Adding Links

After seeing pages from the Aviation Trivia web site linked to from Wikipedia articles, it seemed appropriate to ad a link to pages that have much more comprehensive statistics regarding the aircraft and a wav file of how it sounds. That was the reasoning for the single link I added to the one page. The other links were added by others. The link already on the page: Another link to an unofficial X-15 web site appears to be inoperative. Perhaps it should be removed. --Crvarvaro 08:03, 5 March 2007 (UTC)crvarvaro

[edit] Other incedents of X-15

Article should include the following summaries and links

ID# 56-6671 (AC2?) 10/17/1959 - On Scott Crossfields third flight, one of the two XLR-11 engines exploded forcing an emergency landing that broke the aircrafts back just behind the cockpit. Ref http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scott_Crossfield

ID# 56-6672 (AC3?) 6/8/1960 - (Scott Crossfield) While testing the XLR-99 in a ground tether test, the engine exploded blowing the nose section approximately 40 feet from where the Aircraft was tethered. The pilot was uninjured. The aircraft was repaired (as evidenced by subsequent flights of same AC) Ref http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scott_Crossfield http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_X-15_flights

Perhaps a section of incendents and accidents should be made that includes these items along with the accident that resulted in the death of Adams. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 198.31.184.166 (talk) 20:01, 4 October 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Pilots

The table at bottom says that Joe Walker flew the X-15 as a USAF pilot. That is incorrect. He was the lead test pilot on the project for NASA. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Rocksci (talk • contribs) 05:06, 14 November 2007 (UTC)

Could it be that he was an Air Force pilot attached to NASA? This was common in the early days of the space program.
Have a reference for that claim? If so, BE BOLD!!! and add it. — BQZip01 — talk 09:52, 14 November 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Service ceiling?

Where did this stat come from? I understand service ceiling to be the highest altitude an aircraft can operate because there's too little air either to generate lift/use flight controls or initiate combustion in a conventional engine. The X-15 having both a liquid fueled rocket engine and reaction control system doesn't need any air to operate being limited only by fuel. (I've always wondered how high it could've gone had they used 66671 with its drop tanks to go for maximum altitude or if it could've attained a low sub orbital trajectory had they done such an experiment near the equator.)

If it's just the highest any X-15 flew we should remove it, however if this is a NASA/North American/USAF figure we should cite it. Anynobody 08:15, 19 February 2008 (UTC)

Actually, the service ceiling is the altitude beyond which an aircraft is no longer able to maintain a rate of climb of 100 feet/min. I'm not sure the term would even apply to the X-15. Nibios (talk) 15:29, 5 May 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Nomenclature

I question this use of -1 and -3 in conjunction with the X-15. One and three were X-15As. Only the second one was modified into a dash-2 variant. Adding -1 and -3 to the other two may indicate the order they were serialled in, but is misleading insofar as the actual designation is concerned. Mark Sublette (talk) 22:31, 9 June 2008 (UTC)Mark SubletteMark Sublette (talk) 22:31, 9 June 2008 (UTC)