Test Pilots, the X-15, IGY, and My Weekly Reader
In 1952, the International Council of Scientific Unions (ICSU) proposed a comprehensive series of global activities to span the period July 1957-December 1958, the International Geophysical Year (IGY). This was when I first learned about sun spots as a first and then second grade student in Lisbon, ND. It was also where I learned about Sputnik, Vanguard, Explorer, and a variety of of space related things. One of the ways I learned was through the Weekly Reader, a newsprint magazine which we received every week in grade school.
The Weekly Reader shown here has a picture of Iven Carl Kincheloe, Jr., in a March 1958 issue. He is holding a model of the Bell X-2 research rocket plane which he had flown to a world's record the previous fall. Here the article states he will soon be flying the X-15 rocket plane to the edge of outer space and teases the reader that he may be the first man to do so. It didn't happen. While flying a jet over the Mojave Desert the following summer in 1958, he crashed to his death.
His replacement, Robert M. White, successfully flew 16 flights, reached the edge of space and pushed the test craft to a speed of over 4000 miles per hour (Mach 6). Other test pilots were not so lucky and met the fate of Kincheloe. One involved an X-15 rocket craft. There were three of them. The jinxed plane was X-15 number 3.
The third X-15, while doing engine tests was nearly destroyed in an explosion on a test stand. The explosion occured when a worker placed a fuel vent in a bucket of water to get rid of it's smell, which was bothering him. The man at the controls survived and this same plane was rebuilt, delivered, and successfully flew until on X-15 Flight 3-65-97 (X-15 Flight 191) in November 1967 pilot Michael J. Adams was killed when he could not completely recover from a spin and the plane broke up in mid air.
Possibly the most famous X-15 pilot was Joseph Albert Walker. In 1960, he was the first NASA pilot to fly the X-15 aircraft after initial tests by North American Grummand (the manufacturer) test pilot, Scott Crossfield. Walker would fly the X-15 24 times, and was the first to fly into space. Walker was killed on June 8, 1966, when his F-104 collided with an XB-70 Valkyrie. Walker had been flying for a publicity photo, and was knocked out of control by the supersonic bomber's wake. The "publicity" photo is shown here to the right.
Want to read about the X-15? Go here to the NASA X-15 Page.
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