The X-15 hypersonic rocket plane. The beginnings... (documentary)

[dronescapes]

On the edge of space in 1959.
The story of North American X-15 hypersonic rocket aircraft, reaching a top speed of Mach 6.70 and a staggering height of 67.1 mi (335.000 ft / 108 km). Learn about the courageous pilots that flew it and a brief history of rocket planes, including the Bell X-1, piloted by Chuck Yeager, the first to break the sound barrier, or the Bell X-2 that flew at Mach 3. The X-15 first flight was in mid 1959, more than 60 years ago. It also includes a series of vintage documentaries on the subject.
The X-15 set speed and altitude records in the 1960s, reaching the edge of outer space and returning with valuable data used in aircraft and spacecraft design. The X-15's highest speed, 4,520 miles per hour (7,274 km/h; 2,021 m/s), was achieved on 3 October 1967, when William J. Knight flew at Mach 6.7 at an altitude of 102,100 feet (31,120 m), or 19.34 miles. This set the official world record for the highest speed ever recorded by a crewed, powered aircraft, which remains unbroken.

[Vahe231991]

As demonstrated near the beginning of this documentary, the North American X-15 was not merely a design in its own right but instead was one of several designs by the aerospace industry submitted in response to a requirement by NACA, because the D-684 submission by the El Segundo Division of Douglas for the X-15 competition would have built upon the experience garnered by Ed Heinemann in developing the D-558-1 Skystreak and D-558-2 Skyrocket and designing the unbuilt D-671 (informally called D-558-3 by Heinemann), and Bell's D-171 was the latest in a prolific lineage of high-speed research aircraft designs conceived by Bell going back to the X-1. It is interesting to note that the man who created the requirement for the aircraft that would become the X-15, Walter Dornberger, was involved in the V-2 ballistic missile program, and that only one pilot who took part in the X-15 flight test program is alive today. On the other hand, the first man to set foot on the moon was also an X-15 test pilot, and the altitude record set by the X-15 in 1963 remained the highest record for altitude attained by a suborbital spaceplane until October 2004, when SpaceShipOne flew to 367,500 feet on its last flight.