8 June 1959, 16:38:40 GMT

Aviation, Space Flight, , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,
Scott Crossfield prepares for a flight in the North American Aviation X-15A.

8 June 1959: At Edwards Air Force Base, California, North American Aviation’s Chief Engineering Test Pilot, A. Scott Crossfield, made the first flight of the X-15A hypersonic research rocketplane.

56-6670 was the first of three X-15s built for the U.S. Air Force and NASA. It was airdropped from a Boeing NB-52A Stratofortress, 52-003, at 37,550 feet (11,445 meters) over Rosamond Dry Lake at 08:38:40 a.m, Pacific Daylight Time.

This was an unpowered glide flight to check the flying characteristics and aircraft systems, so there were no propellants or oxidizers aboard, other than hydrogen peroxide which powered the pumps and generators.

The aircraft reached 0.79 Mach (522 miles per hour, 840 kilometers per hour) during the 4 minute, 56.6 second flight.

North American Aviation Chief Engineering Test Pilot Albert Scott Crossfield in the cockpit of X-15A 56-670 before a flight. (NASA)
North American Aviation Chief Engineering Test Pilot Albert Scott Crossfield in the cockpit of an X-15 before a flight. (LIFE Magazine via Jet Pilot Overseas)

In his autobiography, Scott Crossfield described the first flight:

“Three” . . . “Two” . . . “One” . . .

“DROP”

Inside the streamlined pylon, a hydraulic ram disengaged the three heavy shackles from the upper fuselage of the X-15. They were so arranged that all released simultaneously, and if one failed they all failed. The impact of the release was clearly audible in the X-15 cockpit. I heard a loud “kerchunk.”

X-15A 56-6670 under the wing of NB-52A 52-003 at high altitude. Scott Crossfield is in the cockpit of the rocketplane. Air Force Flight Test Center History Office, U.S. Air Force)
X-15A 56-6670 under the wing of NB-52A 52-003 at high altitude. Scott Crossfield is in the cockpit of the rocketplane. (Air Force Flight Test Center History Office, U.S. Air Force)

The X-15 hung in its familiar place beneath the pylon for a split second. Then the nose dipped sharply down and to the right more rapidly than I had anticipated. The B-52, so long my constant companion, was gone. The X-15 and I were alone in the air and flying 500 miles an hour. In less than five minutes I would be on the ground. . . .

There was much to do in the first hundred seconds of flight. First I had to get the “feel” of the airplane, to make certain it was trimmed out for landing just as any pilot trims an airplane after take-off or . . . when dwindling fuel shifts the center of gravity. Then I had to pull the nose up, with and without flaps, to feel out the stall characteristics, so that I would know how she might behave at touchdown speeds . . . My altimeter unwound dizzily: from 24,000 to 13,000 feet in less than forty seconds. . . .

X-15A 56-6670 drops from the wing of the B-52 mothership. This is a glide flight as there is no frost from cryogenic propellants showing of the fuselage. The vapor trail is from hydrogen peroxide that powers the aircraft power systems. Note the roll to the right as the X-15 drops from the pylon. (NASA)
X-15A 56-6670 drops from the wing of the B-52 mothership, 8 June 1959. The vapor trail is from venting hydrogen peroxide used to power the aircraft pumps and generators. Note the roll to the right as the X-15 drops away from the Stratofortress. (NASA)

The desert was coming up fast. At 600 feet altitude I flared out. . . .

In the next second without warning the nose of the X-15 pitched up sharply. It was a maneuver that had not been predicted by the computers, an uncharted area which the X-15 was designed to explore. I was frankly caught off guard. Quickly I applied corrective elevator control.

The nose went down sharply. But instead of leveling out, it tucked down. I applied reverse control. The nose came up but much too far. Now the nose was rising and falling like a skiff in a heavy sea. Although I was putting in maximum control I could not subdue the motions. The X-15 was porpoising wildly, sinking toward the desert at 200 miles an hour. I would have to land at the bottom of an oscillation, timed perfectly; otherwise, I knew, I would break the bird. I lowered the flaps and the gear. . . .

. . . With the next dip I had one last chance and flared again to ease the descent. At that moment the rear skids caught on the desert floor and the nose slammed over, cushioned by the nose wheel. The X-15 skidded 5,000 feet across the lake, throwing up an enormous rooster tail of dust. . . .

—Always Another Dawn: The Story of a Rocket Test Pilot, by A. Scott Crossfield and Clay Blair, Jr., The World Publishing Company, Cleveland and New York, 1960, Chapter 37 at Pages 338–342.

This photograph shows the second North American Aviation X-15A, 56-6671, flaring to land on Rogers Dry Lake, Edwards Air Force Base, California The rear skids are just touching down. The white patches on the aircraft's belly is frost from residual cryogenic propellants remaining in its tanks. (U.S. Air Force)
This photograph shows the second North American Aviation X-15A, 56-6671, flaring to land on Rogers Dry Lake, Edwards Air Force Base, California. The rear skids are just touching down. The white patches on the aircraft’s belly are frost from residual cryogenic propellants remaining in its tanks after a powered flight. (U.S. Air Force)

Before the drop, it was discovered that the aircraft’s Stability Augmentation System was inoperative in pitch mode. During the flight it was found that the hydraulic-assisted flight control system was responding too slowly to Crossfield’s inputs. Engineers analyzed the problem and increased the hydraulic system pressure. The problem never recurred.

Scott Crossfield was the world’s most experienced rocketplane pilot with 82 rocketplane flights before the X-15 program. “. . . he was intimately involved in the design of the aircraft and contributed immensely to the success of the design.”

—At The Edge Of Space, by Milton O. Thompson, Smithsonian Institution Press, 1992, Introduction, at Page 3.

North American Aviation X-15A 56-6670 made the first glide flight and the first and last powered flights of the X-15 Program. It made a total of 82 of the 199 X-15 flights. 56-6670 is in the collection of National Air and Space Museum at Washington, D.C.

A. Scott Crossfield, wearing a David Clark Co. XMC-2 full-pressure suit, which he helped to design and test, with the first of three North American X-15s, 56-6670. (North American Aviation, Inc.)

© 2015, Bryan R. Swopes

8 June 1937

Aviation, , , , , , , , ,
Reception for Amelia Earhart and Fred Noonan at Dakar, French West Africa. (Purdue University Libraries, Archives and Special Collections)

8 June 1937: Leg 11. After landing at Saint-Louis, French West Africa, the previous evening, Amelia Earhart and Fred Noonan reposition the Lockheed Electra 10E, NR16020, to Dakar, their intended destination. They lay over until 10 June for rest and maintenance on the airplane.

“On the morning of June 8 we flew the 163 miles from St. Louis. The chief reason I decided to lay over a day at Dakar instead of proceeding east was because my fuelmeter gave out two hours after we left Natal. The very efficient chief mechanic at Dakar discovered that a piece of the shaft was broken. While he worked on that – a difficult job to manage from a blueprint printed in English, which he did not understand, in an aeroplane he did not know – I had a forty-hour check of the engines, probably all they would need until we reached Karachi.”

—Amelia Earhart

Amelia Earhart’s Lockheed Electra 10E NR16020 being serviced at Dakar, French West Africa. (Purdue University Libraries, Archives and Special Collections)
Straight line distance Saint-Louis to Dakar, French West Africa: 112.16 miles (180.5 kilometers). (Google Maps)

© 2018, Bryan R. Swopes

8 June 1911

Aviation, , , , ,
Glenn Hammond Curtiss’ Federation Aeronautique Internationale/Aero Club of America Licence, No. 1, issued June 8, 1911. (NASM-CW8G-0258)

8 June 1911: The Aero Club of America, as representative of the Fédération Aéronautique Internationale, issued Aviator Certificate Number 1 to Glenn Hammond Curtiss. The document was signed by Allan A. Ryan, president of the club, and G. F. Campbell-Wood, secretary.

© 2021, Bryan R. Swopes

7 June 1937

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Photo of a replica of Earhart’s Lockheed Electra 10E, flown by Linda Finch. (Tony Bacewicz / The Hartford Courant)
Photograph of a replica of Amelia Earhart’s Lockheed Electra 10E Special, NR16020, flown by Linda Finch. (Tony Bacewicz / The Hartford Courant)

7 June 1937: Leg 10—the South Atlantic Crossing. At 3:15 a.m., Amelia Earhart and Fred Noonan departed Natal, Brazil, aboard their Lockheed Electra 10E Special, NR16020, enroute across the South Atlantic Ocean to Dakar, Afrique occidentale française (now, Senegal).

It was 3.15 in the morning when we left Parnamirim Airport at Natal, Brazil. The take-off was in darkness. The longer runway, which has lights, was unavailable because a perverse wind blew exactly across it. So I used the secondary runway, whose surface is of grass. In the dark it was difficult even to find it, so Fred and I tramped its length with flashlights to learn what we could and establish something in the way of guiding landmarks, however shadowy. Withal, we got into the air easily. Once off the ground, a truly pitch dark encompassed us. However, the blackness of the night outside made all the more cheering the subdued lights of my  cockpit, glowing on the instruments which showed the way through space as we headed east over the ocean. “The night is long that never finds the day,” and our night soon enough was day. I remembered, then, that this was my third dawn in flight over the Atlantic. . . .

— Amelia Earhart

Fred Noonan wrote in a letter from Dakar, “The flight from Natal, Brazil produced the worst weather we have experienced—heavy rain and dense cloud formations. . . .”

In her notes, Earhart wrote, “. . . Have never seen such rain. Props a blur in it. See nothing but rain now through wispy cloud. . . .”

— from Finding Amelia by Ric Gillespie, Naval Institute Press, 2006, Chapter 5 at page 41.

The poor weather made it impossible for Noonan to find their way across the ocean by celestial navigation, his field of expertise. Instead, he had to navigate by ded reckoning (short for deductive reckoning, not “dead”) and to estimate course corrections.

When they arrived over the African coastline at dusk, they knew that they were north of their intended course but haze caused very limited visibility. Navigational errors had caused them to miss Dakar, so they turned north until they came to Saint-Louis, where they landed after a 1,961 mile (3,156 kilometer), 13 hour, 22 minute flight.

Fred Noonan’s nautical chart for a portion of the Natal-to-Dakar flight in the Purdue University archives. (Gary LaPook, NavList)
Great Circle route from Parnamirim Airport (NAT), Natal, Brazil, to Saint-Louis Airport ( XLS), Senegal, 1,721 nautical miles (1,981 statute miles/3,188 kilometers). (Great Circle Mapper)

© 2019, Bryan R. Swopes

7 June 1920

Aviation, , , ,
(Aerial Age Weekly, Volume 11, No. 16, June 28, 1920, at Page 551, Columns 2 and 3.)
2nd. Lt. John H. Wilson, Air Service, United States Army, 1920. (Popular Science)

17 June 1920: At approximately 4:00 p.m., a De Havilland DH-4B piloted by 2nd Lieutenant Delmar H. Denton, engineering officer of the 1st Day Bombardment Group, took off from Kelly Field, San Antonio, Texas. Also on board was 2nd Lieutenant John H. (“Dynamite”) Wilson of the group’s 96th Aero Squadron. Lieutenant Wilson was wearing two parachutes.

For the next hour, the two men circled while climbing higher into the sky. When the airplane’s altimeter indicated 20,000 feet (6,096 meters), Lieutenant Wilson stood on his seat, then jumped out of what seemed to be a perfectly good airplane.

Wilson pulled the “rip cord” of his primary parachute, and after what he thought was a very long time, the ‘chute opened, subjecting our intrepid airman to a significant shock.

From that point, Wilson reported that it felt as if he was motionless in the sky. He had no sense of motion. He then fell through an area of severe turbulence. He was thrown in every direction, and, at one point, he and the parachute rolled up and over through a full “loop.” Lt. Wilson was quite nauseous as a result.

The wind tossed him and his frail chute hither and yon, thither and thence, not to mention between and therabouts. He was over, under and parallel with his canvas life saver at various periods.

—AIR SERVICE NEWS LETTER, Vol. IV. No. 26., 10 July 1920, Page 1

Wilson began steering his parachute toward an open area. At approximately 300 feet (91 meters) above the ground, he opened his second parachute in an effort to reduce his rate of descent further before landing. He is reported to have “landed gracefully in a turnip patch.”

The duration of Wilson’s descent was about 17 minutes, and he was blown approximately 18 miles (29 kilometers) away from Kelly Field.

Lieutenant Denton followed Wilson’s parachute in the DH-4B, then landed to pick him up. The pair took off and returned to Kelly Field.

The sealed barographs carried on board the airplane indicated that the actual altitude at which Dynamite Wilson had jumped was 19,861 feet (6,053.6 meters), more than a mile higher than the previous highest parachute jump.

© 2018, Bryan R. Swopes