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X-15 Flight 1-51-81

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  • Member since
    January 2018
  • From: Manchester, UK
X-15 Flight 1-51-81
Posted by DHanners55 on Friday, March 8, 2024 6:34 AM

Here is my latest build, depicting X-15-1, 66670, as it appeared on Flight 1-51-81, flown by Joe Engle on 10 December 1964. The model is a conversion and repaint of Ken West’s 1/32nd-scale card X-15A-2. I used 170gsm glossy stock. The repainting involved adding, deleting and correcting markings. The conversion involved shortening the fuselage and side tunnels, and numerous other changes. 

 

Flight 1-51-81 was the second X-15 flight with wingtip pods. One of the objectives of the flight was to determine if the pods were in the X-15’s “flow field,” so technicians used two different colors of temperature-sensitive paint to determine how hot the pods got. As it happened, they found the pods were indeed in the flow field, causing some experiments to not work as expected.

 

I scratchbuilt a number of features and improved the accuracy of others, including the XLR-99 engine.

 

I checked with various sources and it appears there may be no photos of 66670 on Flight 1-51-81. But there is a good color photo of 66670 taken nine days before the flight. Dennis Jenkins, co-author of “Hypersonic,” told me that is most probably how the vehicle looked for Engle’s flight. In it, 66670 is surprisingly clean, so I went light on the weathering.

 

On Flight 1-51-81, 66670 carried U.S. AIR FORCE on the side tunnels, although they were uneven. It carried no markings on the wings and lacked roundels on the fuselage. The dorsal rudder had the NASA band on the left side only, and the dorsal stub had 66670 on both sides.

 

  • Member since
    November 2003
  • From: Nashville, TN area
Posted by bobbaily on Friday, March 8, 2024 11:51 AM

Very impressive build DHanners55-looks like it should be hanging from the ceiling of a museum.

Might you have any pics of the build in progress?

Cheers

Bob

 

  • Member since
    January 2018
  • From: Manchester, UK
Posted by DHanners55 on Friday, March 8, 2024 12:10 PM

bobbaily

Very impressive build DHanners55-looks like it should be hanging from the ceiling of a museum.

Might you have any pics of the build in progress?

Cheers

 

Thanks for the kind words. I always keep meaning to take in-progress photos, but never do. Next build. I promise....

  • Member since
    May 2011
  • From: Honolulu, Hawaii
Posted by Real G on Friday, March 8, 2024 12:23 PM

Yes, I would also definitely like to see a WIP on one of your projects!  I glued together a few paper planes on postcards sent to me by a friend, but NOTHING compared to what you do.  Most paper model planes I have seen are a littke blocky due to the medium, but your X-15s look like injected plastic models.

“Ya ya ya, unicorn papoi!”

  • Member since
    April 2003
  • From: USA
Posted by keavdog on Friday, March 8, 2024 2:00 PM

That's a beauty.  Just did a 1/72 x-15 and it pales compared to yours.  I've never done a card/paper model and I too would like to see a WIP.  Tremendous results.

Thanks,

John

  • Member since
    January 2018
  • From: Manchester, UK
Posted by DHanners55 on Friday, March 8, 2024 3:18 PM

keavdog

That's a beauty.  Just did a 1/72 x-15 and it pales compared to yours.  I've never done a card/paper model and I too would like to see a WIP.  Tremendous results.

 



Thanks. There are some amazing card modelers out there. I've been at it a couple of decades and I'm still learning. That said, the X-15 lends itself well to cardmodeling -- the shapes are pretty basic. It takes some work to turn the X-15A-2 into the shorter X-15, though. Involves some judicious cutting and scratchbuilding.

There is also a lot of research involved. Among the three airframes, markings could change from flight to flight. For example, when lots of folks model 66670, they usually stick roundels on the rear fuselage. A popular set of decals (no longer available) showed them on every version. But from what I can find, 66670 lacked roundels on the rear fuselage as early as November 1960, and so far, I've only found one dated photo after that (of Forrest Petersen's Flight 1-25-44 on 10 January 1962) showing 66670 with roundels on the rear fuselage. All the other photos I've found show no roundels. I'm more than happy to be corrected on that, though.

It is much the same with the yellow NASA banner on the dorsal rudder. The banner didn't appear until the first NASA flight, Joe Walker's Flight 1-3-8 on 25 March 1960. After that, it could appear on both sides or just one side. (Some experts believe it appeared on just one side because at the time, NASA and the USAF were alternating flights.) Wings had the same issues; they could have the roundels and USAF above and below, or just the roundel, or (as with this model) nothing at all.

X-15-3, 66672, seems to be the only one of the three airframes that carried the "standard" markings on the fuselage and tail throughout its lifetime. Markings came and went on the wings, though.

One of the issues was the paint. As speeds got higher, the ground crew complained that the heat turned the paint to "goop." Eventually, they just stopped replacing most of the markings that burned off. By the time 66670 flew the program's 199th and last flight, aside from the various warning markings, it carried only the yellow NASA dart on the nose, U.S. AIR FORCE on the side tunnels and 66670 on the dorsal rudder stub.

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