NetNews Usenet Archive 1992 #26/NN_1992_26.iso/spool/sci/space/15360

Internet Message Format | 1992-11-05 | 1.7 KB

Path: sparky!uunet!cs.utexas.edu!usc!sol.ctr.columbia.edu!eff!world!ksr![e-mail]
From: [e-mail] (Chris Jones)
Newsgroups: sci.space
Subject: Re: X-15  pictures
Message-ID: <[e-mail]>
Date: 5 Nov 92 09:58:54 EST
References: <[e-mail]>
Sender: [e-mail]
Reply-To: [e-mail] (Chris Jones)
Organization: Kendall Square Research Corp
Lines: 22
In-reply-to: [e-mail] (Claudio Egalon)

In article <[e-mail]>, claudio@nmsb (Claudio Egalon) writes:
>I would like to know where I could get hold of X-15 pictures for
>possible publication. I am also interested, specifically, in a picture of
>one of the first flights of the X-15 that was flown by Scott Crossfield in
>which the (space)craft crashed and was broken in its very middle
>(Crossfield survived). I have never seen a picture of the X-15 after this
>accident and I am curious how it looked like.

I don't have any pointers to stills, but the show "The Rocket Pilots" (I think
that's the title), originally aired on NBC and occasionally rerun on A&E, has
film footage of this accident.  It's exaggerating to call it a crash: the
engine caught on fire and was shut down.  There wasn't enough time to dump the
whole fuel load before landing, so the craft was too heavy for the loads it
underwent on landing.  Crossfield did put it down nicely, and the fuselage
broke.  He received a trophy from the Southern California Soaring Society (a
streamlined brick mounted on mahogany) for the shortest time from 38000 feet
to the ground in a glider.

The flight took place on 5 November 1959, and was the fourth flight of the
program, and the third of the number two X-15.
--
Chris Jones    [e-mail]