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The 'Bell X-2 Starbuster' was an American research aircraft built to investigate flight characteristics in the Mach 2-3 range.

Contents

Design and development

Operational history

Flight test program

Specifications

Popular culture

References

External links

See also

Design and development

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. For, at speeds in that region, they knew they would also begin to encounter a "thermal barrier", severe heating effects caused by aerodynamic friction. Constructed of stainless steel and a copper-nickel alloy, and powered by a two-chamber XLR25 2,500 to 15,000 lbf (11 to 67 kN) thrust throttleable rocket engine, the sweptwing Bell X-2 was designed to probe this region.

Operational history

Following 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. Ziegler and this aircraft were subsequently lost in an in-flight explosion during a captive flight in 1953. Lt. Col. Frank K. "Pete" Everest (1920-2004) completed the first powered flight in the second airplane on 18 November 1955 and, by the time of his ninth and final flight in late July the following year, he had established a new speed record of Mach 2.87 (1,900 mph, 3050 km/h). The X-2 was living up to its promise, but not without difficulties. At high speeds, Everest reported that its flight controls were only marginally effective. Moreover, simulation and wind tunnel studies, combined with data from his flights, suggested that the airplane would encounter very severe stability problems as it approached Mach 3.
A pair of young test pilots, Captains Iven C. Kincheloe and Milburn G. "Mel" Apt, were assigned the job of further expanding the envelope 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 (38,466 m). Just 20 days later, on the morning of 27 September, Mel Apt was launched from the B-50 for his first flight in a rocket airplane. He had been instructed to follow the "optimum maximum energy flight path" and to avoid any rapid control movements beyond Mach 2.7. Flying an extraordinarily precise profile, he became the first man to exceed Mach 3 that day, as he accelerated to a speed of Mach 3.2 (2,094 mph, 3,370 km/h) at 65,500 ft (19,960 m). The flight had been flawless to this point, but, for some reason, shortly after attaining top speed, Apt attempted a banking turn while the airplane was still well above Mach 3 (lagging instrumentation may have indicated that 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). The X-2 tumbled violently out of control and he found himself struggling with the same problem of "inertia coupling" which had overtaken Chuck Yeager in the X-1A nearly three years before. Unlike Yeager, however, Apt was unable to recover and both he and the aircraft were lost.
While the X-2 had delivered valuable research data on high-speed aerodynamic heat build-up and extreme high-altitude flight conditions, this tragic event terminated the program before the National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics could commence detailed flight research with the airplane, and the search for answers to many of the riddles of high-Mach flight had to be postponed until the arrival, three years later, of the most advanced of all the experimental rocket planes, the North American X-15.

Flight test program

Two aircraft completed a total of 20 flights (27 June 1952 - 27 September 1956).

★ ''46-674'': seven glide flights, ten powered flights

★ ''46-675'': three glide flights

Specifications

{{aircraft specifications
|plane or copter?= plane
|jet or prop?= jet
|ref={name of first source}
|crew= one, pilot
|capacity=
|length main= 37 ft 10 in
|length alt= 11.5 m
|span main= 32 ft 3 in
|span alt= 9.8 m
|height main= 11 ft 10 in
|height alt= 3.6 m
|area main=
|area alt=
|airfoil=
|empty weight main= 12,375 lb
|empty weight alt= 5,600 kg
|loaded weight main= 24,910 lb
|loaded weight alt= 11,300 kg
|useful load main=
|useful load alt=
|max takeoff weight main= 24,910 lb
|max takeoff weight alt= 11,300 kg
|more general=
|engine (jet)= Curtiss-Wright XLR25
|type of jet= rocket engine
|number of jets=1
|thrust main=15,000 lbf
|thrust alt= 67 kN
|thrust original=
|afterburning thrust main=
|afterburning thrust alt=
|max speed main= Mach 3.196
|max speed alt= 2,094 mph, 3,370 km/h
|cruise speed main=
|cruise speed alt=
|never exceed speed main=
|never exceed speed alt=
|stall speed main=
|stall speed alt=
|range main=
|range alt=
|ceiling main= 126,200 ft
|ceiling alt= 38,466 m
|climb rate main=
|climb rate alt=
|loading main=
|loading alt=
|thrust/weight=
|power/mass main=
|power/mass alt=
|more performance=
|armament=
|avionics=
}}

Popular culture

★ The 1956 movie ''Toward the Unknown'' starred the X-2, William Holden, Lloyd Nolan and Virginia Leith. A brainwashed former POW tries to return to test flying; co-starring the Martin XB-51 and the Edwards AFB flight line.

★ In the pilot episode of Quantum Leap, Sam Beckett (played by American actor Scott Bakula) leaps into the body of fictional test pilot Tom Stratton in the year 1956, during which time he exceeds Mach 3 in the Bell X-2.

★ At the beginning of the movie Space Cowboys (2000), Frank Corvin (Clint Eastwood) and pilot William "Hawk" Hawkins (Tommy Lee Jones) crash a fictional two-seat version of the X-2.

References

★ Matthews, Henry. ''The Saga of the Bell X-2, First of the Spaceships ''. Beirut, Lebanon: HPM Publications, 1999. No ISBN

★ Winchester, Jim. "Bell X-2." ''Concept Aircraft: Prototypes, X-Planes and Experimental Aircraft''. Kent, UK: Grange Books plc., 2005. ISBN 1-84013-309-2.

External links

★ ''American X-Vehicles: An Inventory X-1 to X-50'', SP-2000-4531 - June 2003; NASA online PDF Monograph

★ NASA Bell X-2 Starbuster Fact Sheet

★ Bell X-2 DVD

See also

★ Douglas D-558

★ List of X-2 flights - list of X-2 pilots and flights.

★ List of experimental aircraft

★ List of rocket planes