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Balls 8
''Balls 8'' is a NASA Boeing NB-52B mothership which was retired in 2004 after almost 50 years of flying service with NASA. The aircraft is famous for dropping the X-15 aerospace research vehicle on 106 of the 199 X-15 program flights. Introduction According to certain assertions, the Boeing NB-52B Stratofortress, Air Force 52-0008, is the aircraft that has witnessed and taken part in the most historical aeronautical research events. It has been a mainstay at Edwards Air Force Base for 45 years. The goal of launching the North American X-15 hypersonic research aircraft project in 1958 took the NB-52B and its sister ship, the NB-52A, 52-0003. The NB-52B served as a launch platform for numerous programs until its final mission on November 16, 2004, whereas the NB-52A was retired in October 1969. Throughout its very difficult mission, the NB-52B was a flying launch pad. While flying nine miles above the ground, it had to provide the rocket planes it carried with the propel ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Lockheed F-104 Starfighter
The Lockheed F-104 Starfighter is an American single-engine, supersonic interceptor. Created as a day fighter by Lockheed as one of the " Century Series" of fighter aircraft for the United States Air Force (USAF), it was developed into an all-weather multirole aircraft in the early 1960s and extensively deployed as a fighter-bomber during the Cold War. It was also produced under license by other nations and saw widespread service outside the United States. After interviews with Korean War fighter pilots in 1951, Lockheed lead designer Kelly Johnson chose to buck the trend of ever-larger and more complex fighters to produce a simple, lightweight aircraft with maximum altitude and climb performance. On 4 March 1954, the Lockheed XF-104 took to the skies for the first time, and on 26 February 1958, the production fighter was activated by the USAF. Just a few months later, it was pressed into action during the Second Taiwan Strait Crisis to deter the use of Chinese MiG-15 ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Boeing 747
The Boeing 747 is a long-range wide-body aircraft, wide-body airliner designed and manufactured by Boeing Commercial Airplanes in the United States between 1968 and 2023. After the introduction of the Boeing 707, 707 in October 1958, Pan Am wanted a jet times its size, to reduce its seat cost by 30%. In 1965, Joe Sutter left the Boeing 737, 737 development program to design the 747. In April 1966, Pan Am ordered 25 Boeing 747-100 aircraft, and in late 1966, Pratt & Whitney agreed to develop the JT9D engine, a high-bypass turbofan. On September 30, 1968, the first 747 was rolled out of the custom-built Everett Plant, the world's List of largest buildings#Largest usable volume, largest building by volume. The 747's first flight took place on February 9, 1969, and the 747 was certified in December of that year. It entered service with Pan Am on January 22, 1970. The 747 was the first airplane called a "Jumbo Jet" as the first wide-body airliner. The 747 is a four-engined jet ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
List Of NASA Aircraft
This is a list of NASA aircraft. Throughout its history NASA has used several different types of aircraft on a permanent, semi-permanent, or short-term basis. These aircraft are usually surplus, but in a few cases are newly built, military aircraft. Current aircraft Aircraft References Bibliography * External links Where Are They Now? at NASA Dryden {{DEFAULTSORT:NASA aircraft NASA lists, Aircraft United States special-purpose aircraft NASA aircraft, ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Denver, Colorado
Denver ( ) is a List of municipalities in Colorado#Consolidated city and county, consolidated city and county, the List of capitals in the United States, capital and List of municipalities in Colorado, most populous city of the U.S. state of Colorado. It is located in the Western United States, in the South Platte River, South Platte River Valley on the western edge of the High Plains (United States), High Plains east of the Front Range of the Rocky Mountains. With a population of 715,522 as of the 2020 United States census, 2020 census, a 19.22% increase since 2010 United States census, 2010, Denver is the List of United States cities by population, 19th most populous city in the United States and the fifth most populous state capital. Denver is the principal city of the Denver metropolitan area, Denver Metropolitan area (which includes over 3 million people), as well as the economic and cultural center of the broader Front Range Urban Corridor, Front Range, home to more than ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Wings Over The Rockies Air And Space Museum
The Wings Over the Rockies Air and Space Museum (WOTR) is located on the former Lowry Air Force Base in Denver, Colorado, United States. The museum preserves the history of Lowry AFB's operations from 1938 to 1994 in its collections, archives, and research library. History From 1937 to 1994 Lowry Air Force Base, located on the eastern edge of Denver, was primarily a technical training center. It graduated more than 1.1 million enlisted members and officers in skills ranging from armament to photography, aiding the country's war efforts in World War II, the Korean War, the Vietnam War and the Cold War. From the 1980s Lowry Air Force Base remained one of Colorado's largest employers, with approximately 10,000 military and civilian men and women, providing an economic impact approaching $1 billion annually. In 1994, the United States Air Force transferred Hangar 1 to a group of volunteers, who established Wings Over the Rockies Air and Space Museum. The Museum includes more than 1 ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Tucson
Tucson (; ; ) is a city in Pima County, Arizona, United States, and its county seat. It is the second-most populous city in Arizona, behind Phoenix, Arizona, Phoenix, with a population of 542,630 in the 2020 United States census. The Tucson metropolitan statistical area had 1.043 million residents in 2020 and forms part of the Tucson-Nogales combined statistical area. Tucson and Phoenix anchor the Arizona Sun Corridor. The city is southeast of Phoenix and north of the United States–Mexico border It is home to the University of Arizona. Major incorporated suburbs of Tucson include Oro Valley, Arizona, Oro Valley and Marana, Arizona, Marana northwest of the city, Sahuarita, Arizona, Sahuarita south of the city, and South Tucson, Arizona, South Tucson in an enclave south of downtown. Communities in the vicinity of Tucson (some within or overlapping the city limits) include Casas Adobes, Arizona, Casas Adobes, Catalina Foothills, Arizona, Catalina Foothills, Flowing Wells, A ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Pima Air & Space Museum
The Pima Air & Space Museum is an aerospace museum in Tucson, Arizona, US. It features a display of nearly 400 aircraft spread out over on a campus occupying . It has also been the home to the Arizona Aviation Hall of Fame since 1991. Overview A large number of the museum's aircraft are displayed outside with the remainder located in one of the museum's six display hangars. In addition to the display hangars, the museum has a restoration hangar. Opened to the public in May 1976 with 48 aircraft then on display, the museum's main hangar houses an SR-71A Blackbird, an A-10 Warthog, a United States Air Force ''Through the Years'' exhibit, and a mock-up of a control tower. The museum is adjacent to Davis-Monthan Air Force Base. The 309th Aerospace Maintenance and Regeneration Group (AMARG), affiliated with the base, also known as the "Graveyard of Planes" or "The Boneyard", is the largest aircraft storage and preservation facility in the world. History The museum opened t ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Pegasus (rocket)
Pegasus is an Air launch to orbit, air-launched launch vehicle, multistage rocket developed by Orbital Sciences Corporation (OSC) and later built and launched by Northrop Grumman. Pegasus is the world's first privately developed orbital launch vehicle. Capable of carrying small payloads of up to into low Earth orbit, Pegasus first flew in 1990 and remained active . The vehicle consists of three Solid rocket, solid propellant Multistage rocket, stages and an optional Monopropellant rocket, monopropellant fourth stage. Pegasus is released from its carrier aircraft at approximately using a first stage wing and a tail to provide lift and altitude control while in the atmosphere. The first stage does not have a Thrust vectoring, thrust vector control (TVC) system. History Pegasus was designed by a team led by Antonio Elias. The Pegasus's three Orion solid motors were developed by Hercules Aerospace (later Alliant Techsystems) specifically for the Pegasus launcher but using adv ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Lifting Body
A lifting body is a fixed-wing aircraft or spacecraft configuration in which the body itself produces lift (force), lift. In contrast to a flying wing, which is a wing with minimal or no conventional fuselage, a lifting body can be thought of as a fuselage with little or no conventional wing. Whereas a flying wing seeks to maximize cruise efficiency at Subsonic flight, subsonic speeds by eliminating non-lifting surfaces, lifting bodies generally minimize the drag and structure of a wing for subsonic, supersonic and hypersonic flight, or spacecraft re-entry. All of these flight regimes pose challenges for proper flight safety. Lifting bodies were a major area of research in the 1960s and 1970s as a means to build a small and lightweight crewed spacecraft. The US built a number of lifting body rocket planes to test the concept, as well as several rocket-launched re-entry vehicles that were tested over the Pacific. Interest waned as the US Air Force lost interest in the crewed missio ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
HiMAT
The Rockwell RPRV-870 HiMAT (Highly Maneuverable Aircraft Technology) is an experimental remotely piloted aircraft that was produced for a NASA program to develop technologies for future fighter aircraft. Among the technologies explored were close-coupled canards, fully digital flight control (including propulsion), composite materials (graphite and fiberglass), remote piloting, synthetic vision systems, winglets, and others. Two aircraft were produced by Rockwell International. Their first flights took place in 1979, and testing was completed in 1983. Design and development The HiMATs were remotely piloted, as the design team decided that it would be cheaper and safer to not risk a pilot's life during the experiments. This also meant that no ejection seat would have to be fitted. The aircraft was flown by a pilot in a remote cockpit, and control signals up-linked from the flight controls in the remote cockpit on the ground to the aircraft, and aircraft telemetry downlinked to ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
