These aircraft included: a range of vertical takeoff and horizontal landing vehicles smaller, propeller-driven reconnaissance vehicles and a series of unmanned missile testbeds of both single and multistage designs. As the program progressed, other non-rocket-powered experimental aircraft were built and tested. The X-Plane Program has evolved from being the first rocket-powered airplane to break the sound barrier (the X-1 on 14 October 1947) and included over 30 different major research designs, although not all were developed into flying prototypes. Until the 1970s, experimental planes (designated "X"-planes for "experimental") were the chief research tools for flight regimes that wind tunnels, simulators and production aircraft Indeed, within an eight-month span in 1961, it became the first aircraft to exceed Mach 4, -5, and -6, and it later went on to become the first-and, so far, only-airplane to fly in near space as it soared to a peak altitude of more than 67 miles (354,200 feet). The X-15 explored hypersonic and exoatmospheric flight. These are typically flown by the Air Force in conjunction with NASA and conducted in a very methodical fashion to answer largely theoretical questions concerning innovative aircraft design principles. Each is instrumented to acquire data about the aircraft, its systems and even the surrounding environment during research flights. Research aircraft are the tools for exploration and discovery. With the supersonic X-1, flight testing assumed a distinctive process using highly experimental research programs - such as with the X-3, X-4, X-5, and through dozens of subsequent X-series aircraft. By early 1945 the world's first experimental airplanes were under development: the rocket-powered XS-1 (later designated X-1), built under Army sponsorship by Bell Aircraft, and the turbojet-powered D-558-1 constructed by Douglas Aircraft under Navy patronage. That became clear by the mid-1940s as engineers began to probe the technological challenges of piloted, supersonic flight. Wind tunnels, simulators and computers can only model what is known. X-Planes Eperimental Aircraft - Military Aircraft FAS |
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