Martin Marietta X-24A
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The Martin Marietta X-24 is an American experimental aircraft developed from a joint
United States Air Force The United States Air Force (USAF) is the Air force, air service branch of the United States Department of Defense. It is one of the six United States Armed Forces and one of the eight uniformed services of the United States. Tracing its ori ...
NASA The National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA ) is an independent agencies of the United States government, independent agency of the federal government of the United States, US federal government responsible for the United States ...
program named PILOT (1963–1975). It was designed and built to test
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 ...
concepts, experimenting with the concept of unpowered reentry and landing, later used by the
Space Shuttle The Space Shuttle is a retired, partially reusable launch system, reusable low Earth orbital spacecraft system operated from 1981 to 2011 by the U.S. National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) as part of the Space Shuttle program. ...
.
also available as a PDF file
'.
Originally built as the X-24A, the aircraft was later rebuilt as the X-24B. The X-24 was drop launched from a modified
B-52 Stratofortress The Boeing B-52 Stratofortress is an American long-range, subsonic aircraft, subsonic, jet-powered strategic bomber. The B-52 was designed and built by Boeing, which has continued to provide support and upgrades. It has been operated by the ...
at high altitudes before igniting its rocket engine; after expending its rocket fuel, the pilot would glide the X-24 to an unpowered landing.


Design and development

The X-24 was one of a group of lifting bodies flown by the NASA Flight Research Center (now
Armstrong Flight Research Center The NASA Neil A. Armstrong Flight Research Center (AFRC) is an aeronautical research center operated by NASA. Its primary campus is located inside Edwards Air Force Base in California and is considered NASA's premier site for aeronautical rese ...
) in a joint program with the U.S. Air Force at
Edwards Air Force Base Edwards Air Force Base (AFB) is a United States Air Force installation in California. Most of the base sits in Kern County, California, Kern County, but its eastern end is in San Bernardino County, California, San Bernardino County and a souther ...
in
California California () is a U.S. state, state in the Western United States that lies on the West Coast of the United States, Pacific Coast. It borders Oregon to the north, Nevada and Arizona to the east, and shares Mexico–United States border, an ...
from 1963 to 1975. The lifting bodies were used to demonstrate the ability of pilots to maneuver and safely land wingless vehicles designed to fly back to Earth from space and be landed like an airplane at a predetermined site. Lifting bodies’ aerodynamic lift, essential to flight in the atmosphere, was obtained from their shape. The addition of fins and control surfaces allowed the pilots to stabilize and control the vehicles and regulate their flight paths. The X-24 (Model SV-5P) was built by
Martin Marietta The Martin Marietta Corporation was an American company founded in 1961 through the merger of Glenn L. Martin Company and American-Marietta Corporation. In 1995, it merged with Lockheed Corporation to form Lockheed Martin. History Martin Marie ...
and flown from Edwards. The X-24A was the fourth lifting body design to fly; it followed the
NASA M2-F1 The NASA M2-F1 is a lightweight, unpowered prototype aircraft, developed to flight-test the wingless lifting body concept. Its unusual appearance earned it the nickname "flying bathtub" and was designated the M2-F1, the M referring to "manned", ...
in 1964, the
Northrop HL-10 The Northrop HL-10 is one of five US heavyweight lifting body designs flown at NASA's Flight Research Center (FRC—later Dryden Flight Research Center) in Edwards, California, from July 1966 to November 1975 to study and validate the concept ...
in (1966), the
Northrop M2-F2 The Northrop M2-F2 was a heavyweight lifting body based on studies at NASA's Ames and Langley research centers and built by the Northrop Corporation in 1966. Development The success of Dryden's M2-F1 program led to NASA's development and cons ...
in 1966 and preceded the
Northrop M2-F3 The Northrop M2-F3 is a heavyweight lifting body rebuilt from the Northrop M2-F2 after it crashed at the Dryden Flight Research Center in 1967. It was modified with an additional third vertical fin - centered between the tip fins - to improve co ...
(1970). The X-24A was a fat, short teardrop shape with three fins for control — the center fin vertical and the left and right fins canted slightly outward. It made its first, unpowered, glide flight on April 17, 1969 with Air Force Maj.
Jerauld R. Gentry Jerauld Richard "Jerry" Gentry (May 16, 1935 – March 3, 2003) was a United States Air Force (USAF) test pilot and Vietnam combat veteran. As chief USAF pilot of the Lifting Body Research Program, he helped validate the concept of flying a w ...
at the controls. Gentry also piloted its first powered flight on March 19, 1970. The craft was taken to around 45,000 feet (13.7 km) by a modified B-52, drop-launched, then either glided down or used its rocket engine to ascend to higher altitudes before gliding down. The X-24A was flown 28 times at speeds up to 1,036 mph (1,667 km/h) and altitudes up to 71,400 feet (21.8 km).


X-24B

The X-24B's design evolved from a family of potential reentry shapes, each with higher
lift-to-drag ratio In aerodynamics, the lift-to-drag ratio (or L/D ratio) is the Lift (force), lift generated by an aerodynamic body such as an aerofoil or aircraft, divided by the aerodynamic drag caused by moving through air. It describes the aerodynamic efficie ...
s, proposed by the Air Force Flight Dynamics Laboratory. To reduce the costs of constructing a research vehicle, the Air Force returned the X-24A to the Martin Marietta Corporation — as Martin Aircraft Company became after a merger — for modifications that converted its bulbous shape into one resembling a "flying flatiron", ''i.e.'', rounded top, flat bottom, and a double delta
planform In technical drawing and computer graphics, a multiview projection is a technique of illustration by which a standardized series of orthographic projection, orthographic two-dimensional pictures are constructed to represent the form of a three-d ...
that ended in a pointed nose. John Manke was the first to fly the X-24B, a glide flight on 1 August 1973. He was also the pilot on the first powered mission 15 November 1973.


X-24C

A variety of "X-24C" proposals were floated between 1972 and 1978. Perhaps the most notable was a Lockheed
Skunk Works Skunk Works is an official pseudonym for Lockheed Martin's Advanced Development Programs (ADP), formerly called Lockheed Advanced Development Projects. It is responsible for a number of aircraft designs, highly classified research and developme ...
design, the L-301, which was to use
scramjet A scramjet (supersonic combustion ramjet) is a variant of a ramjet airbreathing jet engine in which combustion takes place in supersonic airflow. As in ramjets, a scramjet relies on high vehicle speed to compress the incoming air forcefully b ...
s to reach a top speed of Mach 8.


SV-5J

After learning about a remark by
Chuck Yeager Brigadier general (United States), Brigadier General Charles Elwood Yeager ( , February 13, 1923December 7, 2020) was a United States Air Force officer, flying ace, and record-setting test pilot who in October 1947 became the first pilot in his ...
that he would like to have some jet-powered lifting bodies for training purposes, Martin designed and built, on their own initiative, two examples of the SV-5J. The SV-5J was a jet-powered version of the rocket-powered X-24A. The SV-5J had identical dimensions to the X-24A, but was powered by a single
Pratt & Whitney Pratt & Whitney is an American aerospace manufacturer with global service operations. It is a subsidiary of RTX Corporation (formerly Raytheon Technologies). Pratt & Whitney's aircraft engines are widely used in both civil aviation (especially ...
J60-PW-1 jet engine of 1360 kgf, in place of the X-24A's Reaction Motors XLR-11-RM-13 rocket engine. Martin also manufactured a full-scale, unflyable, mock-up of the SV-5J. (Confusion over number built may be due to the mock-up being included in the production list.) Martin were unable to convince Milt Thompson to fly the SV-5J, even after offering a $20,000 bonus. Both examples remained unflown. As the original X-24A was converted to X-24B, one of the SV-5Js eventually was converted to represent the X-24A, for display at the
National Museum of the United States Air Force The National Museum of the United States Air Force (formerly the United States Air Force Museum) is the official museum of the United States Air Force located at Wright-Patterson Air Force Base, northeast of Dayton, Ohio. The NMUSAF is ...
,
Wright-Patterson AFB Wright-Patterson Air Force Base (WPAFB) is a United States Air Force base and census-designated place just east of Dayton, Ohio, in Greene and Montgomery counties. It includes both Wright and Patterson Fields, which were originally Wilbur Wr ...
,
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, beside the original X-24B.


Operational history

The X-24A was flown 28 times in the program that, like the HL-10, validated the concept that a Space Shuttle vehicle could be landed unpowered. The fastest speed achieved by the X-24A was 1,036 miles per hour (1667 km/h or
Mach The Mach number (M or Ma), often only Mach, (; ) is a dimensionless quantity in fluid dynamics representing the ratio of flow velocity past a Boundary (thermodynamic), boundary to the local speed of sound. It is named after the Austrian physi ...
1.6). Its maximum altitude was 71,400 feet (21.8 km). It was powered by an XLR-11 rocket engine with a maximum theoretical vacuum thrust of 8,480 pounds force (37.7 kN). The X-24A was modified into the more stable X-24B with an entirely different shape in 1972. The bulbous shape of the X-24A was converted into a "flying flatiron" shape with a rounded top, flat bottom, and double delta planform that ended in a pointed nose. It was the basis for the Martin SV-5J. The X-24A shape was later borrowed for the X-38 Crew Return Vehicle (CRV) technology demonstrator for the International Space Station. ;X-24A pilots * Jerauld R. Gentry – 13 flights * John A. Manke – 12 flights * Cecil W. Powell – 3 flights


X-24B

The X-24B demonstrated that accurate unpowered reentry vehicle landings were operationally feasible. Top speed achieved by the X-24B was 1,164 mph (1873 km/h) and the highest altitude it reached was 74,130 feet (22.59 km). The pilot on the last powered flight of the X-24B was
Bill Dana William Szathmary (October 5, 1924 June 15, 2017), known as Bill Dana, was an American comedian, actor, and screenwriter. He often appeared on television shows such as The Steve Allen Show, frequently in the guise of a heavily accented Bolivian ...
, who also flew the last X-15 flight about seven years earlier. Among the final flights with the X-24B were two precise landings on the main concrete runway at Edwards. These missions were flown by Manke and Air Force Maj. Mike Love, and represented the final milestone in a program that helped write the flight plan for the Space Shuttle program. The X-24B was the last aircraft to fly in Dryden's Lifting Body program. The X-24B was flown 36 times. The X-24B is on public display at the
National Museum of the United States Air Force The National Museum of the United States Air Force (formerly the United States Air Force Museum) is the official museum of the United States Air Force located at Wright-Patterson Air Force Base, northeast of Dayton, Ohio. The NMUSAF is ...
,
Wright-Patterson Air Force Base Wright-Patterson Air Force Base (WPAFB) is a United States Air Force base and census-designated place just east of Dayton, Ohio, in Greene County, Ohio, Greene and Montgomery County, Ohio, Montgomery counties. It includes both Wright and Patte ...
, Ohio. ;X-24B pilots * John A. Manke – 16 flights * Michael V. Love – 12 flights * William H. "Bill" Dana – 2 flights *
Einar Enevoldson Einar K. Enevoldson (June 15, 1932, in Seattle, WashingtonApril 14, 2021) was the director of the Perlan Project. He was a civilian research pilot for NASA's Hugh L. Dryden Flight Research Center, Edwards, California, from 1968 until 1986. He wa ...
– 2 flights * Thomas C. McMurtry – 2 flights *
Dick Scobee Francis Richard "Dick" Scobee (May 19, 1939 – January 28, 1986) was an American pilot, engineer, and astronaut. He was killed while commanding the Space Shuttle ''Challenger'' in 1986, which suffered catastrophic booster failure during laun ...
– 2 flights


Serial number

* 66-13551 ** X-24A, 28 free flights; 10 unpowered, 18 powered ** X-24B, 36 free flights; 12 unpowered, 24 powered


Specifications (X-24B)


See also


References


Notes


Bibliography

* Miller, Jay. The X-Planes: X-1 to X-45. Hinckley, UK: Midland, 2001. * Reed, R. Dale with Darlene Lister
''Wingless Flight: The Lifting Body Story''.
Lexington, KY: University Press of Kentucky, 2002. . * Rose, Bill, 2008. Secret Projects: Military Space Technology. Hinckley, England: Midland Publishing. * Winchester, Jim. "Martin-Marietta X-24." ''X-Planes and Prototypes.' London: Amber Books Ltd., 2005. .


External links


NASA Dryden X-24 Photo Collection


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at Encyclopedia Astronautica {{Authority control Edwards Air Force Base Lifting bodies X-24, Martin Marietta
Martin Marietta X-24 The Martin Marietta X-24 is an American experimental aircraft developed from a joint United States Air Force–NASA program named PILOT (1963–1975). It was designed and built to test lifting body concepts, experimenting with the concept of ...
Rocket-powered aircraft Aircraft first flown in 1969 Aircraft with auxiliary rocket engines Aircraft with retractable tricycle landing gear Triple-tail aircraft