Page 14 - The Future of Aerospace is X - X-Planes 2021

Bell X-16: The X-Plane that wasn’t X-15, from 13

outside the Earth’s atmosphere. In monia and liquid oxygen. It provided
addition, it carried out the “explo- a maximum thrust of 57,000 pounds
rations to separate the real from the and a minimum thrust of 28,000
imagined problems and to make pounds. Launch weight of the air-
known the overlooked and the unex- craft was 31,275 pounds, decreasing
pected problems” that Hugh Dryden to 12,295 pounds at burnout.
had called for in 1956 when the X-15 The X-15A-2, modified from the
was still in the design and develop- number two aircraft and delivered to
ment phase. NASA in February 1964, included
among other new features, a 28-inch
Except for the number two X-15 fuselage extension to carry liquid hy-
when modified as the X-15A-2, the drogen for a supersonic combustion
X-15s were roughly 50 feet long, ramjet that was flown (as a dummy)
with a 22-foot wing span. The but never tested. It also had external
wedge-shaped vertical tail was 13 tanks for liquid ammonia and liquid
feet high. Because the lower vertical oxygen. These tanks provided rough-
tail extended below the landing skids ly 60 seconds of additional engine
when they were deployed, a part of burn and were used on the aircraft’s
the lower vertical tail was jettisoned Mach 6.7 flight. While adding to the
just before landing and recovered by speed the X-15 did achieve, the tanks
a parachute. The aircraft was pow- also increased the aircraft’s weight
ered by a Thiokol (Reaction Motors to almost 57,000 pounds and added
Division) XLR-99 throttleable rocket significantly to the drag experienced
engine powered by anhydrous am- by the aircraft in flight.
X-15 being carried by its
NB-52B mothership (52-
0008), with T-38A chase
The X-16 was the most blatant misuse of the X-vehicle pect ratio unit that was significantly lighter and more flexible plane.
designation system — it was simply an attempt to hide what than any in existence at the time. In fact, the entire airframe
would today be called a spy plane. was extremely flexible — a result of the need to make the
The X-16 was designed to be a high-altitude long-range aircraft as light as possible to allow it to achieve its 70,000-
reconnaissance aircraft. foot mission altitude. A 3,000 mile unrefueled range was
A total of 28 aircraft were ordered, but none would be predicted for the production aircraft.
completed before the Lockheed U-2 successfully demon- Although never built, the X-16 pioneered several notable
strated its ability to perform the spy mission. advances in lightweight structure design, and also was the
The first aircraft was reportedly over 80 percent complete driving force behind the development of high-altitude ver-
when the program was cancelled. The X-16 was a designer’s sions of the J57 jet engine that would go on to power the
nightmare — the wing was an extremely long-span high-as- U-2 and other aircraft. NASA photograph
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