![]() " Inertia coupling" and a subsonic inverted spin had overtaken Chuck Yeager in the X-1A nearly three years before. The X-2 tumbled violently out of control and he found himself struggling with three sequential coupling modes, control coupling, inertial roll coupling and supersonic spinning. The flight had been flawless to this point, but shortly after attaining top speed, Apt attempted a banking turn while the aircraft was still above Mach 3 (lagging instrumentation may have indicated he was flying at a slower speed or perhaps he feared he was straying too far from the safety of his landing site on Rogers Dry Lake). With nozzle extenders and a longer than normal motor run, Apt flew an extraordinarily precise profile he became the first man to exceed Mach 3, reaching Mach 3.2 (2,094 mph, 3,370 km/h) at 65,500 ft (19,960 m). He had been instructed to follow the "optimum maximum energy flight path". Just 20 days later, on the morning of 27 September, Apt was launched from the B-50 for his first flight in a rocket airplane. "Mel" Apt were assigned the job of "envelope expansion" and, on 7 September 1956, Kincheloe became the first pilot ever to climb above 100,000 ft (30,500 m) as he flew the X-2 to a peak altitude of 126,200 ft (38,470 m). Moreover, simulation and wind tunnel studies, combined with data from his flights, suggested the airplane would encounter very severe stability problems as it approached Mach 3. ![]() High speed center of pressure shifts along with fin aeroelasticity were major factors. At high speeds, Everest reported its flight controls were only marginally effective. The X-2 was living up to its promise, but not without difficulties. ![]() About this time, the YF-104A was demonstrating speeds of Mach 2.2 or 2.3 in a fighter configuration. By the time of his ninth and final flight in late July 1956 the project was years behind schedule, but he had established a new speed record of Mach 2.87 (1,900 mph, 3,050 km/h). "Pete" Everest completed the first powered flight in the #1 airplane (46-674) on 18 November 1955. The wreckage of the aircraft fell into Lake Ontario and was not recovered. A B-50 crew member, Frank Wolko, was also killed during the incident. Ziegler and aircraft #2 (46-675) were subsequently lost on, in an inflight explosion during a captive flight intended to check the aircraft's liquid oxygen system. The X-2's twin set of shock diamonds in the exhaust plume, characteristic of supersonic conditions from a two-chamber rocket engine.įollowing a drop launch from a modified B-50 bomber, Bell test pilot Jean "Skip" Ziegler completed the first unpowered glide flight of an X-2 at Edwards Air Force Base on 27 June 1952. Constructed of stainless steel and a copper- nickel alloy, K-Monel, and powered by a liquid propellant (alcohol and oxygen) two-chamber XLR25 2,500 to 15,000 lbf (11 to 67 kN) sea level thrust, continuously throttleable rocket engine, the swept-wing Bell X-2 was designed to probe the supersonic region. For, at speeds in that region, they knew they would also begin to encounter a "thermal barrier", severe heating effects caused by aerodynamic friction. Providing adequate stability and control for aircraft flying at high supersonic speeds was only one of the major difficulties facing flight researchers as they approached Mach 3. The XLR25 rocket engine, built by Curtiss-Wright, was based on the smoothly variable-thrust JATO engine built by Robert Goddard in 1942 for the Navy. aircraft (previously demonstrated on the Me 163B during World War II) and digital flight simulation. Not only did the X-2 push the envelope of manned flight to speeds, altitudes and temperatures beyond any other aircraft at the time, it pioneered throttleable rocket motors in U.S. The Bell X-2 had a prolonged development period due to the advances needed in aerodynamic design, control systems, materials that retained adequate mechanical properties at high temperature, and other technologies that had to be developed. The Bell X-2 was developed to provide a vehicle for researching flight characteristics at speeds and altitudes in excess of the capabilities of the Bell X-1 and D-558 II, while investigating aerodynamic heating problems in what was then called the "thermal thicket". The X-2 was a rocket-powered, swept-wing research aircraft developed jointly in 1945 by Bell Aircraft Corporation, the United States Air Force and the National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics (NACA) to explore aerodynamic problems of supersonic flight and to expand the speed and altitude regimes obtained with the earlier X-1 series of research aircraft. ![]() The Bell X-2 (nicknamed "Starbuster" ) was an X-plane research aircraft built to investigate flight characteristics in the Mach 2–3 range. National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics
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