That's it Derek45!!

Thank you so much for that

What I find so amazing is we went from biplanes to that in 25 years or so.

It had to have been that alien tech from Roswell.

I first saw that picture here in a post from you maybe a year ago.

Always figured (if that illustration was of an actual aircraft as claimed) if it was some kind of product of ISINGLASS. Looks like it has conventional engines mounted underneath and a rocket on the back.

The XB-70 style intake is interesting too, especially now that Boeing shows their SR-72 entry/concept with the same intake.

The ‘90s is a huge gap in aircraft awesomeness, I’m hoping Aurora gets declassified soon

Great book, I have a copy myself (without the signature though). Neil signature is a pretty rare thing.

Pictures

http://www.mach25media.com/x15chap12.html

Watched First Man the other day, this incident is the first scene of the movie.

For book fans, this is an excellent story of the X-15 program, written by one of the pilots.

https://www.amazon.com/At-Edge-Space-Flight-Program/dp/1588340783/ref=sr_1_2?keywords=edge+of+space&qid=1567146913&s=gateway&sr=8-2

My copy I picked up used some years ago before they reprinted it.  I happened to stumbled into a copy that was signed by Neil Armstrong himself !

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Duh! What every pilot thinks before a difficult flight: “Sure hope I get laid tonight!”.

I’m not a huge fan of the Air Force but I think this country’s interests would have been better served to let the AF continue leading the Space Program than NASA.  I believe NASA was created to get us to the moon and that’s it.

But, as a kid, there was nothing cooler than the X-15. Those guys had balls of Titanium.

TC

Yeah, the Germans showed up and said “let us show you what we have done”. Then we took them to Roswell...



TC

FUCKING AMAZING what humans can produce ... truly amazing.  The intelligence, combined with master level craftsmanship .... beautiful

I've been there...came across this monument chukar hunting years ago

For the X-15 obsessives, a great - FREE - ebook from NASA, authored by aerospace historian Dennis Jenkins, X-15: Extending the Frontiers of Flight (2012). It's a 700 page book, that not only covers the North American X-15 (and proposed derivatives), but also competing proposals from the likes of Douglas, Republic, Bell, etc.

The NASA page with the EPUB, PDF, and MOBI file versions of the book for download are linked at the title.

Those were glorious days...for America.

While I have no proof, I can't help but guess the X-15 program got turned into a "black" development program and eventually became the cause of "Aurora" sightings.

yep, it’s cheap on Kindle too

I watched this last night on youtube.

Typical Hollywood drama, but Mary Tyler Moore was pretty cute back then

I'm lead to believe that it is a ISINGLASS product from McDonald Douglass.  The image is of a painting seen at McDonald Douglass St Louis by an Aviation Week & Space Technology, which is where a lot of ISINGLASS work went on.

You got the engine placement reversed, however.  The upper engines are the conventional engines, likely GE-J79-17s as used on F-4E Phantoms, since the upper intakes are definitely F-4 Phantom intakes.  There is a slight possibility the engines are PW-F100-200s from the F-15A/B Eagle, since the image shows an F-15B was one of the chase aircraft by the tail section shown that appears in the image.

The lower intake would be for the ramjet engine.  It's placement is similar to the SR-72 to take advantage of airflow compression from the airframe and wings.  In the image there is flame coming from the ramjet, indicating that this would be an image of the start of a test run for the aircraft.

I tend to think the painting was of the first ramjet-powered flight of this aircraft, likely some time in the late 1970s or early 1980s.  I 'd love to get the facts on what exactly is shown, but without any concrete information it's all speculation.  But there was a photo taken from the ground out in the California desert that many believe was the aircraft in this image, under the name BRIGHT STAR.

Got to spend a good amount of time with Scott Crossfield in 1999ish.  Incredible guy.  Incredible aircraft.

Nah.  Our Germans were better than their Germans.

From what I remember reading about the program, the 2nd picture in the OP is the last flight, the only time the A/C was white, and came very close to melting in flight.
Wiki doesn't seem to agree with me, so i might be mis remembering

I believe you are correct.  The scram jet they were carrying under the aircraft had signs of massive thermal damage and the general opinion was if that aircraft had heated up just a bit more, there would of been a catastrophic accident.