This silent footage shows the Martin Marietta X-24B lifting body at Edwards Air Force Base. It likely dates to 1973 when the aircraft was first flown. At 2:19 the aircraft is seen mated to a mothership B-52. At 4:27 are some brief shots of the aircraft being dropped at altitude.
The Martin Marietta X-24 was 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 unpowered reentry and landing, later used by the Space Shuttle. 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.
The X-24 was drop launched from a modified B-52 Stratofortress at high altitudes before igniting its rocket engine; after expending its rocket fuel, the pilot would glide the X-24 to an unpowered landing.
The X-24B’s design evolved from a family of potential reentry shapes, each with higher lift-to-drag ratios, 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”—rounded top, flat bottom, and a double delta planform that ended in a pointed nose.
First to fly the X-24B was John Manke, a glide flight on 1 August 1973. He was also the pilot on the first powered mission 15 November 1973.
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, 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, Wright-Patterson AFB, Ohio.
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