Evening star., 1962-08-12
x-15

Continued From Page A.
combined time logged by thl
four Mercury Astronauts wnC
have flown to date.
Expensive Flight Time
Looked at in one way, Uncle
Sam thus seems to have beer
buying single-seater. limited
range, non-combat airplaneS a.
about SIS million copy
Looked at in another way, HI
has been buying flight time al
80 million an hour.
To look at it in either way
would be to miss the point Of
X-15. and indeed of all avant-
garde research planes. Says De
z. Beeler, associate director Of
the NASA Flight Research
Center here:
by building a research air.
plane you take liberties - not
with safety necessarily, but
With design. This gets people
to thinking. The value of doing
things like the Kills program
is that they provide informa-
ton that enables industry to
Gorge ahead"
On this basis, Mr.. Beeler be-
lieveS. Kills had largely paid
for itself before it ever flew. 1t
caused new metal working
methods to be devised. new in
struments to be built, new gad-
getry to be worked out-thingS
that would not have come about
but for Kills, yet things that
are rapidly becoming standard
today on military aircraft and
tomorrow on commercial ships.
Many people believe Kills is
the ultimate airplane. that any
craft more advanced than this
will be a hybrid-part airplane,
part spaceplane. This empha-
sizes one salient fact about
Kills that should always be
kept in mind, but is often for
gotten: 1t is an airplane all the
way; a high-flying, fast-moving
airplane, to be sure, but nothing
but an airplane. 1t will never
orbit the earth and re-enter
because it was never built to
do so. The Kills under the
hands of Joe Walker and Maj.
White has flown beyond its
design capabilities already.
More Records Ahead
There will be new marks set
by Kills of course. Its present
altitude record of $4,000 feet
is not its true ceiling. Pilots
and project engineers alike say
Kills is probably good for 500,-
600 feet-roughly 100 mile alti-
tude. And they think they
could squeeze another half a
Mach number" out of the bird,
which means adding perhaps
300 miles an hour to the pres
ent mark of 4,105.
The added altitude might
help in certain specific studies
connected with the space pro-
gram; but so far as going after
higher speed is concerned, there
is doubt whether it is really
worth doing.
To hit 4,400 miles an hour in
the X-l5, Mr.. Beeler explains,
it would be necessary to tighten
the airplane's load. This would
be done by stripping it's inStru-
mentation bay. which can hold
up to 800 pounds of scientific
gear. With Instrumentation
out. the plane would fly faster,
but valuable data on heating,
stability and such would be
lost. The flight would be little |
more than a stunt. |
We've hit somewhere around
the broad limits of the bird"
Mr. Beeler sums up.
Limits Are High
What are these broad lin
It's in comparison with those
d other aircraft?
First of all, its lower limits
tart where other planes conk
out. 1t takes off" at an alti-
tude of nine miles and a speed
of about 500 miles an hour. Its
deep-throated rocket engine |
"idleS" at Mach 4 four times
the speed of sound), and Kills
cannot be flown in powered
flight as slowly as Mach 2 with
out its speed brakes extended.
1t flies consistently at alti-
tudes above 100000 feet, has
repeatedly cracked 100000 with
mo sweat" and is the only
non-spacecraft to have ever
exceeded 100000. At the mo-
ment, Bob White is the only
man in the world to have quail
fled for Astronaut rating in
a winged aircraft.
"It's a marvellous machine,
says an admiring Scotsman
named Harry Archer. "It's
regularly operating now in re-
gimes that are three times the
capability of the fastest mill
tary airplanes."
Mr.. Archer. a squadron lead
er in the Royal Air Force on
duty with the USAF here, is
one Of the Kills projects B-52
pilotS-a steel-nerved lot whose
flying skill is overShadowed by
the headline-making perform
ance OF the craft they carry to
launch altitude.
Unknown to Reds
The Kills is far and away
the fastest thing in the free
world, and as far as anyone
here knows, the Russians have
nothing that can touch it. Aero
dynamicists here feel sure that
word of such a craft would
seep out of even the closed So
U.S.. COPTER Pill
SCOTTISH BRID(