Bell X-2

X-2
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Type	Research aircraft
Manufacturer	Bell Aircraft Corporation
Designed by	Robert J. Woods
Maiden flight	18 November 1955 (first powered flight)
Retired	27 September 1956
Primary users	U.S. Air Force (USAF) NACA
Number built	2

File:X-2 on ramp with B-50 mothership and support crew.jpg

Bell X-2 and crew

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

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 inflight 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

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General characteristics

• Crew: one, pilot
• Length: 37 ft 10 in (11.5 m)
• Wingspan: 32 ft 3 in (9.8 m)
• Height: 11 ft 10 in (3.6 m)
• Empty weight: 12,375 lb (5,600 kg)
• Loaded weight: 24,910 lb (11,300 kg)
• Max takeoff weight: 24,910 lb (11,300 kg)
• Powerplant: 1× Curtiss-Wright XLR25 rocket engine, 15,000 lbf (67 kN)

Performance

• Maximum speed: Mach 3.196 (2,094 mph, 3,370 km/h)
• Service ceiling: 126,200 ft (38,466 m)

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 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

Notes

Bibliography

• Hallion, Dr. Richard P. "Saga of the Rocket Ships." AirEnthusiast Five, November 1977-February 1978. Bromley, Kent, UK: Pilot Press Ltd., 1977.
• 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

• Bell P-63 Airacobra, L-39-2 swept-wing test variant
• Douglas D-558
• List of X-2 flights - list of X-2 pilots and flights.
• List of experimental aircraft
• List of rocket planes

Bell Aircraft/Bell Helicopters

Fighter aircraft: YFM-1 · P-39 · P-59 · P-63 · XP-77 · XP-83

Commercial Helicopters: 47 · 204 · 205 · 206 · 210 · 212 · 214 · 222 · 230 · 407 · 412 · 417 · 427 · 429 · 430

Military Helicopters: H-13 · UH-1 · 207 · 209 · AH-1 · 309 · YAH-63 · OH-58 · ARH-70

Tiltrotors: V-22 · BA609 · TR918 · QTR

Experimental aircraft: X-1 · X-2 · X-5 · X-20 X-22 · XV-3 · XV-15 · 533 ·

This article is licensed under the GNU Free Documentation License. It uses material from the Wikipedia article "Bell X-2".