McGraw-Hill Book Company, Inc. presents Toward the Unexplored, a short 1967 documentary film produced by CBS 20th Century and narrated by Walter Cronkite. The documentary shows viewers the deadly flight of the Bell X-2 rocket aircraft piloted byt Milburn G. Apt in 1956. The film opens with footage of the X-2 flying attached to a B-50 Superfortress on 27 September 1956. The film shows viewers the flight test center at Edwards Air Force Base (03:05), shots of the X-2, and a wind tunnel building where airflow is recorded (04:42). Men work on a missile used to measure aerodynamic effect (06:17); instruments on the ground measure the data from the rocket, which takes off and then parachutes to the ground. Rockets loaded with research instruments sit on launch sites ready to take off and collect data (07:25). Various wing designs are tested on rocket sleds (08:12); one such sled races along a track. Footage shows viewers the Bell X-1 dropping from its mothership (09:09), as well as footage of the Bell X-1A, Douglas X-3, Northrup X-4, Bell X-5, and Bell X-2. Men prepare for a ground test of the X-2; it is anchored to concrete to prevent runaway. A fuel truck pumps fuel into the tanks of the aircraft. The X-2’s rocket engines are fired up (12:48) in the grounded exercise. Lt. Colonel Frank “Pete” Everest drives his car into Edwards AFB (13:40) prior to a test flight. The X-2 flies through the air (14:18) and Everest is shown in the cockpit. The X-2 lands in the desert. Men run to meet Everest after the landing and help him out of the cockpit. Captain Iven Kincheloe prepares to fly the X-2 (15:22). He climbs into the plane that is partially in the bay of a B-50. Footage shows him flying the X-2 at high altitudes previously not reached. Captain Milburn G. Apt prepares to fly the X-2 on its thirteenth flight; he sits in the ship’s cockpit. Apt climbs into the B-50’s bubble nose for takeoff. The B-50 takes off. Footage shows the B-50 flying with the X-2 attached below. A chase plane is in position next to the two planes. The crew of the B-50 prepare to release the X-2. The pilot releases the X-2, which fires up its engines and flies off with mountains in the background. Apt pilots the X-2 as he climbs to 70,000 feet and breaks the speed of sound. Men on the ground record the flight and its data, watching as Apt hits Mach 3. The film then shows the cockpit and Aft as he turns the ship to return to base (23:28), just before he loses control of the X-2. Helicopters and trucks head to the crash site of the X-2 (24:04). The film ends with footage of new test planes designed to continue advancing aircraft technology.
The Bell X-2 (nicknamed “Starbuster”) was an X-plane research aircraft built to investigate flight characteristics in the Mach 2–3 range. The X-2 was a rocket-powered, swept-wing research aircraft developed jointly in 1945 by Bell Aircraft Corporation, the United States Air Force and the National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics (NACA) to explore aerodynamic problems of supersonic flight and to expand the speed and altitude regimes obtained with the earlier X-1 series of research aircraft.
