THE X-15: THE AIRPLANE THAT TOUCHED SPACE
It flew at 4,520 miles per hour. It climbed above 350,000 feet. Its pilots earned astronaut wings
without ever riding a rocket off a launch pad. The X-15 remains the fastest airplane a human
being has ever flown.
THE FASTEST AIRPLANE EVER FLOWN
Air-dropped from a B-52 and driven by a throttleable rocket engine, the X-15 reached Mach 6.7 in 1967 — a piloted-aircraft speed record that still stands.
At those velocities, its skin glowed from friction heating and conventional control surfaces stopped working; the X-15 steered with reaction thrusters, like a spacecraft.
TO THE EDGE OF SPACE
On its highest flights the X-15 climbed past 350,000 feet — above the boundary of space by U.S. Air Force standards — and its pilots earned astronaut wings in an airplane.
Among the twelve men who flew it was a young test pilot named Neil Armstrong.
199 FLIGHTS Across 199 flights from 1959 to 1968, the X-15 generated data on hypersonic flight, reentry heating, and pilot control at the edge of the atmosphere that fed directly into Apollo and, later, the Space Shuttle.
It was the research program that connected airplanes to spacecraft.
THE BRIDGE BETWEEN AIR AND SPACE
The X-15 is the purest expression of an idea this brand is built on: air and space aren't two stories.
They're one story, and this airplane is the chapter where they meet.
THE X-15 DIDN'T CROSS THE LINE BETWEEN AIR AND SPACE — IT PROVED THERE ISN'T ONE.
