
What it was like to fly the baddest airplane - rbanffy
https://arstechnica.com/science/2019/09/what-it-was-like-to-fly-the-baddest-airplane-the-world-has-ever-known/
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vermontdevil
Definitely worth your trip to Dayton Ohio at the National Museum of the Air
Force to see this plane in person. It’s on the floor so you can see it up
close. I believe the other one at the Air and Space Museum is hung above.

The Air Force Museum is just an all around one of the best aviation museums to
go anyway.

~~~
peckrob
Yup. The Air Force Museum is probably one of the best aviation museums
anywhere in the world, perhaps second only to the Smithsonian. So many unique,
one of a kind aircraft are preserved there.

If you're an aviation geek who likes to linger and read, plan on two days. I
went a couple years ago. I got there when they opened and spent the whole day
there. I had to blitz through the last hanger because they were closing and I
didn't even get to see any of the outdoors exhibits or a movie.

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jjwiseman
I haven't been there in several years, but Norton Sales[1], an aerospace
surplus shop in North Hollywood, used to have a couple X-15 engines for
sale[2][3].

1\. [http://www.nortonsalesinc.com](http://www.nortonsalesinc.com) 2\.
[https://www.flickr.com/photos/wallofhair/4595764150/in/photo...](https://www.flickr.com/photos/wallofhair/4595764150/in/photolist-7QQa2N-7ULjUL-7ULmJN-83HWJi-817uyW)
3\.
[http://www.wendingourway.com/space/norton.htm](http://www.wendingourway.com/space/norton.htm)

~~~
gricardo99
wow, thanks for sharing. A couple years ago I was curious about where to find
surplus, old/retro gauges, panels, etc... a didn't find much. I had the idea
to build some retro cockpit-like setup into a tree house for my kids. There's
no pricing on their web-page, but this would be a treasure trove for something
like that.

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epiphanitus
"Hey bud, we've got a new airplane for you to fly. Well, it's not really an
airplane, its really more like a cockpit strapped to a rocket engine.
Actually, it's more like a tiny cabin bolted to a super soaker of chemicals so
explosive that we didn't bother to include an igniter.

It has some tiny wings for you to control it but we couldn't include any
landing gear so we gave it some flimsy skids instead. We were hoping you would
at least find them cute even if they aren't particularly useful.

We included a diaper in your pressure suit that will be helpful if you get
scared. You also don't have to worry about taking off, but when you try to
land please make sure that you descend at the right angle so that you don't
accidentally take a joy ride to Alpha Centauri.

Please be careful with our flying bomb with tiny wings and cute little skids.
While it may be just a cockpit strapped to a flamethrower, it still cost $999
million to build, so no dents, please and thank you."

Best regards,

Uncle Sam

~~~
partialrecall
fyi the first 20-so flights of the X-15 burned LOX/alcohol, similar to the X-1
or V-2. Later flights burned LOX/ammonia. I'm not sure about the ammonia, but
LOX/alcohol is not hypergolic.

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cyberferret
The X-15 has always intrigued me, even more so than the SR-71 as a kid, when I
found out that it could travel at nearly Mach 7. That is more than twice as
fast as a standard .308 bullet muzzle velocity.

~~~
EdwardDiego
Wow, see now that made the speed more graspable for me (hunt with a .308),
cheers mate!

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sailfast
> Three decades later, he still misses it like hell

I can’t imagine what it must be like to go to space as a profession, and then
need to leave or retire. A bittersweet thing, to be sure.

~~~
howard941
Would you like to read some moving fiction about it?

_Phases of Gravity_ by Dan Simmons takes it head-on with an astronaut whose
days flying are over.

More obliquely a national loss of space capability is taken on by Norman
Spinrad in _Russian Spring_.

Both great reads, and sad.

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mellosouls
Not the same plane, but this reminded me of the amusing "my planes faster than
yours" ground speed check of the Blackbird pilot.

[https://oppositelock.kinja.com/favorite-
sr-71-story-10791270...](https://oppositelock.kinja.com/favorite-
sr-71-story-1079127041/amp)

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Svoka
This comes from place of ignorance, so please be kind: why "speed record" is
considered Mach 6.2 when ISS ground speed is like Mach 22? There are humans
there, they got up to speed and regularly come back. How it is different than
going to similar velocities in thin atmospheres over 50km?

~~~
dTal
> the world record for speed by a piloted, powered aircraft

It literally says it right there. The ISS is not a piloted, powered aircraft.
Also it was Mach 6.7, not 6.2.

Incidentally, the speed record for a crewed vehicle was set by Apollo 10 at
11.08 km/s - almost half as fast again as the ISS.

~~~
Aaargh20318
> It literally says it right there. The ISS is not a piloted, powered
> aircraft. Also it was Mach 6.7, not 6.2.

But aren't the Soyuz capsules that dock with the ISS piloted and powered ?

~~~
mumblemumble
I would assume that Soyuz capsules aren't considered aircraft. They don't
really fly, per se, they get launched on a rocket and then fall like a rock
back to earth.

You could make a stronger argument for the Space Shuttle, which re-enters at
about Mach 25, IIRC, and is gliding. But it's not doing so under power.

~~~
JshWright
> Soyuz capsules aren't considered aircraft

While I suspect you're right, Soyuz capsules do use aerodynamic lift to
control descent rate and steer to the landing site. In some ways they are
very, very (very) inefficient gliders.

~~~
ansible
I'd expect the definition of a powered aircraft to include the ability to
maintain some given flight altitude and speed for some appreciable amount of
time.

It is possible to do something sort of like this in a space capsule returning
to Earth, where you muck up your entry vector and come in at too shallow an
angle. You can then (depending on the circumstances) bounce off the
atmosphere, and gain altitude briefly. And then you probably come back in the
atmosphere on too steep an angle, and die due to g-load or overheating.

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tzs
The X-15 was awsome, and "bad" is being used in the informal North American
sense that means "good" or "excellent".

If you want some planes that live up to the other sense of "bad", here is an
amusing article about several planes you might enjoy [1].

[1] [https://www.cracked.com/article_18839_7-planes-perfectly-
des...](https://www.cracked.com/article_18839_7-planes-perfectly-designed-to-
kill-people-flying-them.html)

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ohiovr
Was fun making X-15 model rocket kits as a kid

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JasonFruit
Okay, the X-15 was pretty great, but speed alone doesn't make it "the baddest
airplane the world has ever known". When I read the title, I immediately,
unhesitatingly assumed it would be this:
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gee_Bee_Model_R](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gee_Bee_Model_R).

~~~
00N8
Yeah, calling the X-15 the most badass plane ever is a bit silly. If it
counts, then why isn't the Space Shuttle "the most badass plane"? It went
faster & higher, after all.

Anyway, I'd assumed it was going to be the SR-71, but yours looks awesome & I
enjoyed the article either way!

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KineticLensman
From the article:

> “I honestly can say I was so terribly focused on flying those profiles as
> closely as possible that I didn’t really have time to look out the window
> and see how pretty it was,”

Joe Engle, describing the X-15

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Sir_Cmpwn
> And, remarkably, it also went on to fly into space more than a dozen times.

Only twice, according to the standard everyone else uses. Saying the X-15 has
been to space a dozen times is like weighing yourself in kilograms to make the
number smaller. Certainly helps the ego of those Air Force pilots, and Blue
Origin, though!

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chasd00
didn't see this in the article but I recall an x-15 story I read as a kid.
seems after a landing the plane was being inspected and engineers noticed a
burn hole that took out part of a real stabilizer and all the way through the
airframe and fuel tank. Fortunately, the fuel tank was already empty when it
happened.

the story may just be X-15 folklore but my child self was impressed haha

~~~
peterloron
This was on flight 188. Shockwaves from a scramjet mockup impinged on the
ventral stabilizer and local heating caused a burn through.

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RaceWon
I'm in awe of the balls that those guys had in that era--to strap one of those
beasts to their ass. How surreal that.

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Gravityloss
An example of a reusable rocket vehicle. Some versions had throwaway extra
propellant tanks.

That road was not really taken until now potentially with SpaceX. (The Space
Shuttle had design / political issues that made it operationally very
expensive.)

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jhoechtl
The s/baddest/worst experience ever?

~~~
zaroth
No, in this case "bad" is a synonym of "rad".

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peignoir
Made me want to read the “right stuff”

~~~
arethuza
Or watch _First Man_ which opens with Neil Armstrong having an interesting
flight in the X-15.

~~~
squarefoot
There's also an old movie called "X-15" which I enjoyed a lot as a kid.

~~~
arethuza
As a young kid here in the UK I had a Ladybird book with a picture of an X-15
- almost 50 years later I can still remember my fascination with that machine.

99% Certain it was this one:

[https://www.arranalexander.co.uk/exploring-space-vintage-
lad...](https://www.arranalexander.co.uk/exploring-space-vintage-ladybird-
book-achievements-series-601-first-edition-dust-cover-1964-2513-p.asp)

Now I have to find one!

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fernandez
This is hilarious

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computerphysics
Guinness World Records recognized NASA's X-43A scramjet with a new world speed
record for a jet-powered aircraft - Mach 9.6, or nearly 7,000 mph.

~~~
golemotron
Unmanned.

~~~
mbostleman
The concept of both piloted and powered seems to be really elusive.

