X-1 and Crew

X-1Jack Russell/Chuck Yeager & addtl ground crew, originally uploaded by imjmr.

X-1, Jack Russell, Chuck Yeager & the ground crew stand underneather the mothership loaded and ready to go with the experimental X-1 rocket plane aka Glamorous Glennis.

Jack Russell was also Chuck Yeager's Crew Chief - pictured front and center.

Jack was a technical advisor for the movie "The Right Stuff." He even had a cameo role as the janitor who sawed the broom handle needed to close the hatch after Yeager broke his ribs.

Star Chart

May 17, 1950 - XS-1 Rocketplane

May 17, 1950 - The XS-1 (an upgraded version of the X-1), with NACA test pilot John H Griffith at the stick, reaches Mach 1.13 at 12810 miles. It's the 35 flight of the rocket plane.

Skyrocket Drop from Mothership

X-2, originally uploaded by amphalon.

The swept-winged rocket-powered Douglas Skyrocket (incorrectly identified as the Bell X-2) drops from its mothership on it's way to another record-breaking flight.

British Space Rocket 1954

1954-space-rocket, originally uploaded by x-ray delta one.


from The Boy's Book of Jets
London: Thames Publishing Co., 1954

X-15 Powered Flight

September 17, 1959 -
The first powered flight of the X-15, piloted by Scott Crossfield.

My Flights Towards Space

The X-15 rocket motors firing for the first time in the air, is dropped off towards the unknown. At the controld, Scott Crossfield.

X-15 flights mean great strain on Crossfiled but, as he is sealed in tiny cockpit he shows no sign of worry

X-15 is the forerunner of spaceship. Scott Carpenter's special pressure suit shown here is prototype for spacemen of tomorrow.

from "My Flights Towards Space"
Royal Airforce Flying Review, September 1960

Maiden Flight of the X-15

June 8, 1959 - The X-15's maiden flight.

A technician straps test pilot Scott Crossfield into the cockpit of the missile-shaped X-15 rocket plane before flight. Crossfield is carried aloft in his sleek, black rocket plane beneath the wing of a B-52 from NASA's Flight Research Center. It's the beginning of flight research probing the hypersonic speed realm and altitudes at the edge of space.

Image Credit: NASA/North American Aviation

The XSL-01 Assembly Sheet

Assembly instruction diagram for the Revell 1/96th scale model kit of thier XSL-01, dated 1958.

The XSL-01 spaceship was designed by rocket scientist Ellwyn E. Angle of Systems Laboratories Inc. The design has a detailed manned top stage with full interior with a removable top, main and booster stages (dertachable to recreate all phases of the flight from Earth takeoff, lunar landing and the return to Earth), flight and ground crew and fully detailed launch gantry. The kit includes the "XSL-01 Operations Manual" instructing each phase of piloting this spaceship in spaceflight.

Space Flight: The Quick and Easy Way

A design proposal for a scaled-down, piloted three-stage space ship.

From the book "Worlds in Space"
by Martin Caidin
illustration by Fred L. Wolff
(1954)

The Sound Barrier Awaits

The date is June 18, 1947. The place is Muroc AFB. B29 and two XS-1 rocket planes. The one at center is lowered down a ramp to be mated to the mothership's belly.

The X-15 Rollout

The first X-15 (56-6670) rocket powered research aircraft is rolled out in 1958. At this time, the XLR-99 rocket engine is not ready, so to make the low-speed flights (below Mach 3), the X-15 team will fit a pair of XLR-11 engines into the modified rear fuselage. These were basically the same engines used in the X-1 aircraft.

The X-15 is a product of the accumulated knowledge of manned rocket craft, the first true spacecraft, with hope to make our first flight to the edge of space.