page_title: Joe Engle
section_title: Flight experience
hierarchical_section_title: Joe Engle / Biography / Flight experience
caption_attribution_description: English: NASA astronaut and X-15 pilot Joe Engle with the North American X-15A-2 aircraft during the X-15 program, which ran from 1959 through 1968. Engle flew the X-15 for the U.S. Air Force 16 times from 1963 to 1965. NASA photo in public domain.
context_page_description: Maj Gen Joe Henry Engle, USAF, Ret. is an American pilot, aeronautical engineer and former NASA astronaut. He was the commander of two Space Shuttle missions including STS-2, the program's second orbital flight. He also participated in the Shuttle program's Approach and Landing Tests. Engle is one of twelve pilots who flew the North American X-15, an experimental spaceplane jointly operated by the Air Force and NASA.
  As an X-15 pilot, Engle made three flights above 50 miles, thus qualifying for astronaut wings under the American convention for the boundary of space. In 1966 he was selected for NASA's fifth Astronaut Group, joining the Apollo program. He was the backup Lunar Module Pilot for Apollo 14 and originally scheduled as LMP for Apollo 17. However, cancellation of later flights prompted NASA to select geologist-astronaut Harrison Schmitt as LMP, displacing Engle.
  Engle is an experienced spaceplane operator and the last living X-15 pilot.
context_section_description: Engle received his commission in the U.S. Air Force through the Air Force Reserve Officer Training Corps at the University of Kansas. While in school he was a member of the Professional Engineering Fraternity Theta Tau, and decided to become a test pilot. While working at Cessna Aircraft during the summer, he learned how to fly from a fellow draftsman, Henry Dittmer.
  Engle entered flying school in 1957, and received his pilot wings in 1958. He flew the F-100 Super Sabre with the 474th Fighter Day Squadron and the 309th Tactical Fighter Squadron at George Air Force Base, California. Chuck Yeager recommended Engle for USAF Test Pilot School, from which he graduated in 1961, and he was later assigned to the third class of the Aerospace Research Pilot School, despite his reluctance to leave "stick and rudder" flying for a space capsule.
  After serving as a test pilot in the Fighter Test Group at Edwards Air Force Base, California, Engle was a test pilot in the X-15 research program at Edwards from June 1963 until his assignment to the Manned Spacecraft Center (now the Lyndon B. Johnson Space Center). Engle had applied with fellow ARPS student Charles Bassett and Michael Collins to the third NASA astronaut group, but the Air Force withdrew Engle's NASA application and instead chose him to replace Robert M. White in the X-15 program, which pleased Engle.
  Engle's parents witnessed his X-15 flight of 29 June 1965, which exceeded an altitude of 50 miles (80 km) and qualified him for astronaut wings; he again exceeded 50 miles twice during his career of 16 flights. On his final X-15 mission, free flight 153 (1-61-101), which took place on 14 October 1965, he became the first of only two pilots to accomplish a sub-orbital space flight in an X-15 without the benefit of the assistance provided by the MH-96 adaptive flight control system. Despite what he later called "the best flying job in the world", Engle decided to apply again to NASA as he expected to be rotated to another Air Force assignment within a year and hoped to go to the Moon.
  Engle has flown over 185 different types of aircraft (25 different fighters) during his career, logging more than 15,400 hours flight time of which 9,000 were in jet aircraft.
caption: Engle with the X-15A-2 aircraft in 1965
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