{"id":422,"date":"2010-03-19T09:58:43","date_gmt":"2010-03-19T13:58:43","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/localhost\/wordpress65\/?p=422"},"modified":"2013-03-07T09:35:29","modified_gmt":"2013-03-07T14:35:29","slug":"x-series-flight-testing-continues-eddies-airplane-patch","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.grayrinehart.com\/blog\/x-series-flight-testing-continues-eddies-airplane-patch\/","title":{"rendered":"X-Series Flight Testing Continues at Eddie's Airplane Patch"},"content":{"rendered":"

Forty years ago today — March 19, 1970 — USAF test pilot Major Jerauld R. Gentry made the first powered flight in the X-24A lifting body<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

(X-24A with rocket engine ignited after being dropped from the B-52 carrier aircraft. NASA image.)<\/em><\/p>\n

\nThe same B-52 used in the X-15 program (and later in the Pegasus program*) carried the X-24A to about 40,000 ft (13,860 m) altitude, where it was dropped and its rocket engine took the rest of the way through its flight profile. It then glided to a landing on the dry lakebed at Edwards AFB.<\/p>\n

Over the life of the program, the X-24A made 28 powered flights, reaching a maximum speed of 1,036 mph (1,667 km\/hr) and a maximum altitude of 71,407 ft (21,765 m). According to the project description on this page<\/a>, NASA later used the X-24A’s shape as the basic profile for the X-38 Crew Return Vehicle demonstrator. <\/p>\n

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\n*Full disclosure: When I was stationed at Edwards (1986-90), I was on the Flight Readiness Review committee for the first Pegasus launch from that same B-52.<\/p>\n\"Facebook\"<\/a>\"twitter\"<\/a>\"pinterest\"<\/a>\"linkedin\"<\/a>\"mail\"<\/a>by <\/span>\"feather\"<\/a>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Forty years ago today — March 19, 1970 — USAF test pilot Major Jerauld R. Gentry made the first powered flight in the X-24A lifting body. (X-24A with rocket engine ignited after being dropped from the B-52 carrier aircraft. NASA image.) The same B-52 used in the X-15 program (and \u2026 Continue reading → <\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5,8],"tags":[16,37,11,123,40],"class_list":["post-422","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-military","category-space","tag-edwards","tag-nasa","tag-space-history","tag-usaf","tag-x-15"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.grayrinehart.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/422","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.grayrinehart.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.grayrinehart.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.grayrinehart.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.grayrinehart.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=422"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.grayrinehart.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/422\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1265,"href":"https:\/\/www.grayrinehart.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/422\/revisions\/1265"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.grayrinehart.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=422"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.grayrinehart.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=422"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.grayrinehart.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=422"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}