Price: $19.95
- 5 magazines, 6 documents, & photos
- PDF contains 1,556 pages
- Content is keyword searchable
- Print a personal copy
- Pay via PayPal or Credit Card
- International orders welcome!
- Download files upon payment
May 1978
- X-15, North American’s Hypersonic Bullet
- Convair’s Tradewind
May 1993
- Flying the X-15 at Mach 6
- Mass Producing the P-51 Mustang
- Vultee’s Attack Planes
October 2002
- Joe Engle, Fighter Pilot and X-15 Astronaut
- B-25s in North Africa
- Navy Jet Seaplanes
March 2004
- X-15 Accidents
- World War II Bombing
- Operating Iraqi Freedom
- Passenger Helicopters
November 2005
- X-15 Pilots in Space
- Popeye Intercept
- 80 Years of Schneider Cup Races
Manuals & Photos
- X-15 Flight Manual 1962
- X-15 30th Anniversary 1989
- X-15 Advanced Research Airplane 1955
- X-15 Frontiers Of Flight, NASA
- X-15 Hypersonics Before the Shuttle 2000
- X-15 Research Results 1965
- Over 200 X-15 photos
Bonus
- NASA X-15: To The Edge of Space, poster PDF
Specifications
On Display
Cutaway
Videos
General Characteristics
- Crew: one
- Length: 50 ft 9 in (15.45 m)
- Wingspan: 22 ft 4 in (6.8 m)
- Height: 13 ft 6 in (4.12 m)
- Wing area: 200 ft2 (18.6 m2)
- Empty weight: 14,600 lb (6,620 kg)
- Loaded weight: 34,000 lb (15,420 kg)
- Max. takeoff weight: 34,000 lb (15,420 kg)
- Powerplant: 1 × Thiokol XLR99-RM-2 liquid-fuel rocket engine, 70,400 lbf at 30 km (313 kN)
Performance
- Maximum speed: 4,520 mph (7,274 km/h)
- Range: 280 mi (450 km)
- Service ceiling: 67 mi (108 km, 354,330 ft)
- Rate of climb: 60,000 ft/min (18,288 m/min)
- Wing loading: 170 lb/ft2 (829 kg/m2)
- Thrust/weight: 2.07
X-15 Aircraft
- X-15A-1 (AF Ser. No. 56-6670) is on display in the National Air and Space Museum “Milestones of Flight” gallery, Washington, D.C.
- X-15A-2 (AF Ser. No. 56-6671) is at the National Museum of the United States Air Force, at Wright-Patterson Air Force Base, near Dayton, Ohio. It was retired to the Museum in October 1969. The aircraft is displayed in the Museum’s Research & Development Hangar alongside other “X-planes”, including the Bell X-1B and Douglas X-3 Stiletto.
Mockups
- Neil A. Armstrong Flight Research Center, Edwards AFB, California, USA (painted with AF Ser. No. 56-6672)
- Pima Air & Space Museum, adjacent to Davis-Monthan AFB, Tucson, Arizona (painted with AF Ser. No. 56-6671)
- Evergreen Aviation & Space Museum, McMinnville, Oregon (painted with AF Ser. No. 56-6672). A full-scale wooden mockup of the X-15, it is displayed along with one of the rocket motors.
B-52 Stratofortress Mother Ships
- NB-52A (AF Ser. No. 52-003) is displayed at the Pima Air & Space Museum adjacent to Davis–Monthan AFB in Tucson, Arizona. It launched the X-15-1 30 times, the X-15-2, 11 times, and the X-15-3 31 times (as well as the M2-F2 four times, the HL-10 11 times and the X-24A twice).
- NB-52B (AF Ser. No. 52-008) is displayed at the Dryden Flight Research Center at Edwards AFB, California. It launched the majority of X-15 flights.
