The Fastest and Most Dangerous Aircraft From The 1950s | Bell X-2
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Today we're looking at the Bell X-2, the first aircraft to exceed Mach 3. Designed to explore these high speeds and the use of swept wings, it became notorious for being behind schedule, overbudget, and dangerous. Both aircraft were lost in two horrific accidents that brought much scrutiny on the handling of the program by the USAF.
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Sources:
Pelletier.A.J (1992), Bell Aircraft Since 1935.
Davies.B.E (2017), Bell X-2 (X-Planes Series).
NACA (1951), Lift and drag coefficients for the Bell X-1 airplane (Research Memorandum).
Online Sources:
www.nasa.gov/centers/armstron...
up-ship.com/blog/?p=15373
Video Footage Courtesy Of:
NASA
archives.gov
Mach 2: D-558-2 and X-2 DVD (buy it here -spacemonkey-models.myshopify....)
0:00 Intro
3:44 Design Origins
7:20 Bell Model 52 (The X-2 is born)
8:42 Aerofoil Design
10:50 Control Systems
12:49 "Escape" System (More of a suggestion, really...)
15:39 Heat Management
17:30 Rocket Motor Development
19:57 Flight Testing Begins
21:55 The First X-2 Is Lost
23:33 The Path To Mach 3
25:45 Success & Disaster - วิทยาศาสตร์และเทคโนโลยี
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F.A.Q Section
Q: Do you take aircraft requests?
A: I have a list of aircraft I plan to cover, but feel free to add to it with suggestions:)
Q: Why do you use imperial measurements for some videos, and metric for others?
A: I do this based on country of manufacture. Imperial measurements for Britain and the U.S, metric for the rest of the world, but I include text in my videos that convert it for both.
Q: Will you include video footage in your videos, or just photos?
A: Video footage is very expensive to licence, if I can find footage in the public domain I will try to use it, but a lot of it is hoarded by licencing studies (British Pathe, Periscope films etc). In the future I may be able to afford clips :)
Q: Why do you sometimes feature images/screenshots from flight simulators?
A: Sometimes there are not a lot of photos available for certain aircraft, so I substitute this with digital images that are as accurate as possible.
Feel free to leave you questions below - I may not be able to answer all of them, but I will keep my eyes open :)
More flying wings please 😁😁😁
Excellent video....Thanks my friend......Old Shoe🇺🇸
Do you plan on making an episode on the Nord 2501 aka Noratlas ? It's a funny looking transport of the 50's
The start of Tom Wolfe's The Right Stuff where he talks quite bluntly about the dangers of being a testpilot in that era is unforgettable.
Actually the Me 262's swept wing was not originally part of the design. The original design was for a straight wing but the jet engines were longer then anticipated and would have pushed the centre of balance forward. So they used swept back wings to move the engines back and this brought the balance back to where it was supposed to be.
Yes. And they then discovered the high-speed advantages of the new wing.
Correct.
@@anzaca1 They already knew of the high-speed advantages of swept wings as a result of Adolph Busemann's work on supersonic (and subsequently transonic) flow over swept wings in the mid 1930s. The published research was pretty much ignored by everyone except the Germans who had more than a passing interest in its potential for new weapons, and Busemann became head of the new German Institute for Aviation Research. As noted, the Me262 wasn't designed to have swept wings but the use of them to sort out the CofG issues was backed up by sound research and I'd suggest that the observed advantages of the design simply confirmed what they already knew.
@@rockymac3565 Interestingly much of the German Blitz Grieg doctrine was based on the work of others which only the Germans had more than a passing interest too.
@@anzaca1 but only with an increase in max speed of a mere 18kts.
25:06 Yes, that's a 2 seat F-86 flying as the chase plane. The nearly unique TF-86F was used as a chase plane at Edwards AFB after North American Aviation failed to interest the Air Force in a trainer version of the F-86. Only one other was built; it crashed and this one was built to replace it.
Great knowledge man hope he sees this🎉! @rexhanger
That strange shape of the chase aircraft caught my eye as well. The tail was definitely F86 but front looked a bit like the chubby F84F. A confusing appearance I couldn't resolve. Thanks for the explanation. I will now search for a photo of this rare two seat TF86. 🛩
It's interesting how well buried the explosion of the first X2 has been buried. You would think there would be post-explosion pictures of the carrier aircraft all over the Internet, but there are none publicly available.
It was much easier to hide something like this back in the day than it is now. Today everyone has a camera in their pocket, but back then every camera on the scene was NACA or AF property and had to be returned in order to be developed, at which point they could just go into the lab and confiscate the photos right after they got developed.
@@foximacentauri7891 well, in high security areas like these tests were taking place in, even today nobody is allowed to have cellphones or other devices with cameras or outside communications.
Doesn't mean people don't try to smuggle them inside, but there are very serious consequences if caught and there are checkpoints where people and their belongings are searched.
@@jwenting agreed even in relatively mundane, to me at least, training areas we were in it was a restricted area and cameras were forbidden. Kind of amusing for a raw trainee first time seeing all the warning signs then realizing "hey I'm authorized personnel" 😁
That bail out procedure sounds like something straight out out KSP....
Check out the Ba 349 Natter. Its normal flight included falling out of half the cockpit after the forward half was jettisoned. Never had a normal flight, though, it was a last ditch German weapon in 1945.
You include bail out procedures in KSP?
The Bell L-39-1 and L-39-2 were both built from P-63A-9 King Cobra fuselages with modified P-63 E-1 wings. They were not based on P-39's. Both aircraft were built as Navy projects to test low speed handling of wings proposed for future Swept wing Carrier aircraft. There were several leading edge slot designs tested and several alterations to the basic airframe to bring the C of G within limits. The fuselage had a 4 foot plug installed, the prop was changed for a lighter 3 blade from a P-39 and there were a number of different sized ventral fins tried. At the end of Navy testing, the L-39-2 was taken back by Bell and the wing modified to simulate the proposed airfoil for the Bell X-2. I believe that the Bell L-39 was the first conventional swept wing US aircraft to fly. "COBRA!" by Birch Matthews is a good source of info.
My guess on why these early supersonic flights were so plagued with problems is the designers and engineers forgot to consider in their calculations the brass pair it took for a test pilot to jump onto these things. Those things could easily modify total weight and center of gravity of an airplane 😂
Tex Johnston famously joined Boeing and impressed them with his coolness when flying early B-47 flight tests (maybe not so much when he rolled the 367-80 twice!)
I feel like this particular aircrafts machine spirit was especially malevolent and vindictive.
Thank you for another upload Rex.
The D-558 #3 sat outside my photography lab on a low pedestal at antelope Valley community college. Always had a soft spot for it.
The story with the X-1 to X-2 kinda reminds me later how after hearing the performance of the SR-71 that the thought was 'well if we can go that fast we could "easily" go the next step up to continuous hypersonic flight".
the idea behind the X-15 wasn't initially controlled hypersonic flight in the atmosphere, but leaving the atmosphere and using control thrusters once in space.
So while going M3+ in the atmosphere it was considered quite OK for the X-15 to just go straight ahead with no possibility to change direction :)
Right? I had the same thought. The X-1 (rightfully) and its research gets so much attention, it’s hard to appreciate the huge leap between it and the X-2.
You should take a look at the P6M Seamaster, a jet powered nuclear bomber that was a flying boat!
It was a jet!,
I live in Niagara Falls NY where Bell Airo-Space was Originally Started P-39 P-59 Bell X-1 and Flying Jet Pack were Designed and Built
My Dad worked at Niagara Falls Air Force Base 1955-1970 I miss those days big time. I got my first plane ride on my 9th Birthday June 11,1964 in an F-101 Voodoo Fighter Jet
My dad had to go to Aberdeen Proving Grounds to learn how to pack up the Nuclear War Heads for the Missile Base’s in Niagara & Erie Counties in 1969-1970 when the Air Force closed most if not all missle silo’s
Are you kidding me?? You got to ride in an F-101 when you were NINE? That is so incredible! I was a full fledged aviation fan by then, and would have totally appreciated being able to do that. That is amazing.
I think I remember Scott Crossfield describing the X-2's escape system as "committing suicide to keep from getting killed" in a documentary I saw as a kid.
My test pilot hero. Definitely wanted to be like him, as a kid.
@@ronjon7942 Me too.
You have no idea how hard it was to let a few videos build up
I can't wait any longer I'm going all in at mach 3 sonny Jim
The dangerous aerodynamics of the X-2 was the very reason why North American spent a lot of time making *VERY* sure the X-15 could avoid the inertial coupling issue that destroyed the second X-2 test plane. The biggest problem with the X-15 was trying to get the XLR-99 engine to work reliably, which happened by early 1961.
Thank you!
I couldn't remember "inertial coupling" when I posted just now. I knew I'd known the name of what bedeviled early X-Planes but when I looked in the box where it was kept... It was empty!
I'm off to write "inertial coupling" 200 times! 😆
The 1950s were absolutely _bananas_ for aero development. To be that guy the copper alloy is called Monel K, and rhymes with yawn/yell.
Some of these test aircraft are still in the desert around Edwards Air Force Base.
I do remember reading about the bell testing the swept wing on one of their designs before the x2 , however didn’t they use a bell p63 king cobra , not a bell p39 , the picture shows a 4 bladed propeller which was used on the king cobra
Nicely done. I'm wondering, though, if an official inquiry turned up any mismanagement. Probably not, since the Air Force were sort of the Golden Child of the armed forces at the time, and I'm guessing there was a lot of "looking the other way".
Terrific summary of a complex program. Well done.
When discussing the loss of the #2 X-2 over Lake Ontario, perhaps you should clarify that the X-2 was blown out of the B-50 and fell into the Lake. The issues with the landing characteristics of the X-2 were mostly due to poor design, cured by reducing the skid height, making the craft more stable laterally.
I loved how Chuck Yeager thought it would take the British and French years to catch on to the little trick of an all-moving tail plane, not knowing that the British had passed that on to Bell after they abandoned their own supersonic development program. Chauvinism at its best😅.
Ah the 50s, crazy times
Craziest times in aviation development history… snap your fingers and poof, 450mph to 2,000mph almost overnight.
To think, the Wright brothers first flight was ~30 mph, and WWI fighters were flying at 110 mph.
you mean crazy like in good times crazy, not like 2020s crazy, right ?
Really, truly fascinating .... thank you for all the work you put into these. It really shows (that is, they look and sound great, very professional). We didn't even notice the difference in volume levels that you mentioned. Take care of that voice!
Scott cross field also has some useful information to add. In an interview he said it was already known that Mach 3 on the x2 was always going to be fatal.
When exploring the unknown bad guesses will be made.
Nice video, however the 262 had a swept wing because of the weight of the engines. They discovered the advantages of it later.
Keep up the good work Rex! I have been enjoying your videos immensely.
Another excellent job Rex.
Bravo old chap!
I was always interested in the X-Planes and had read about the X-2. On a visit to the Planes of Fame Museum in Chino California. Looking around the back lot I discovered the Fuselage and wings of an X-2. I was so excited I checled it out when I got home, only to find it was a prop from the Quantum Leap TV series .
Great Vid as always with top footage ..nice one Rex.
Your channel is one of the prime examples why I no longer watch of in fact even own a tv-receiver. Not only are these interesting (despite me not actually being an aviation freak), but the production value is so good it's pleasing to watch regardless of the subject matter.
Also while doing so I can at least pretend I'm learning something! So thank you for the channel and videos, I really appreciate you and other people on TH-cam making quality content.
You can actually watch TH-cam on ROKU Smart TV with a much larger screen.
Same. No tv, and I dumped my subscription services long ago, although I’d prolly do Brilliant or Nebula. For sure, Rumble is next, tho, to break the YT chains.
Superb editing and narration as usual. Love the absence of a music track…the story of the X2 speaks loudly enough. Thank you.
Great video, Rex...👍
Hi rex, good well researched video. Have you done a piece on the Blackburn Buccaneer?
Quit an interesting aircraft.
Keep up the excellent work!
RR Spey engines ,massive power down low, BEAST 👹
Oof yes a great aircraft!
Transonic drag and other issues related to Mach speeds would fit great in a video about Soviet BI-1 (БИ-1)..
Definitely a follow up video with the X-15 eventually would be great. Truly a technological marvel of the history of aviation. First rocket powered aircraft past mach 6, first aircraft to reach the edge of space and re-enter the atmosphere. The scientific data gathered from those flights shaped the way we view aviation and spaceflight.
So good I watched it twice. Nice work, Rex!
Very interesting. Well done.
Bell X-1 design was given to USA by UK. In 1943, the British War Office issued a project to Miles Aircraft for a turbo jet aircraft to fly 1000 miles at 1000mph. They came up with the M-52. It had a conical pilot pod that could be separated from the aircraft, fully flying tail and thin symmetrical section wings. The project was almost ready to fly when the government cancelled it and handed the data to USA.
He addresses the issue in his video on the X1
I always thought this was extremely gentlemanly of the British. Given all the work and research they had accomplished, I felt the Brit engineers should have broken the sound barrier. It’s too bad the government and the times dictated the direction of their aerospace industry, but good that we ran with it. Say what you need to about we Americans, but get our heads together and on the same page, we do alright.
Thank you for another interesting video
Well researched and presented history lesson. Well done Sir! ✈ 🛩
Fantastic revelations.Impressive work on
Another excellent vid.
A great video. Thank you.
Your research and presentation are top notch.
Very educational. Thanks.
great information. thank you!
amazing video. thank you.
I have no idea why it took me so long to watch this; absolutely fascinating video, wonderful research, thanks for posting!
Tolles und sehr interessantes Video, vielen Dank :-)
Damn, this is a great presentation because it’s so informative. BTW, Your diagram of airflow over the wing at Mach .72 and above is very good and I wish it showed how well Boeing engineers did with the B-737 back in the day. It’s tail was part of the engineering issue and in spite of how they’re viewed today, I think we all can agree they did an awesome job!
Very nice.
5:11 This is why the Supermarine Spiftie was quite nateable. It's critical Mach number was higher than most early jets, meaning it handled better at high speed.
Thank you very much
Amazing - thank you :-)
25:06 mark, that is a rare shot of one of two twin seat TF-86's made. Used as a chase plane for awhile at Edwards.
Great story, which covers so many of the issues that need to be managed during a real engineering project, especially one developing cutting-edge technologies.
You do have a talent of the understatement. :)
I swear
Great video! Love the channel. Would you ever consider making a x15 video
Uh, quick technical note. The effects of the transonic regime are (at least, additionally to the stated reason) called "compressibility" because that's actually what's happening. The air's density is actually increasing meaningfully when flowing around the wing. Under most circumstances this effect around the airframe is actually minimal (if you aren't intentionally compressing it in an engine), but as the plane approaches the speed of sound, the air starts compressing menaingfully and doing interesting things around the wings and control surfaces. Accordingly, this effect is almost entirely absent from boat hydrodynamics because the speed of sound in water is much higher than in air.
Take care and wish you speedy recovery (and regain your voice too!), best wishes from Malaysia 🇲🇾
"He who dares, wins." Certainly, it's a motto from a bunch of men who did extraordinarily dangerous and risky things to ensure that others might have the best chances in their dangerous missions. The information gained by these pilots allowed for every modern, supersonic jet in the US arsenal for the last 60 years.
Apt missed the runway with an aircraft that had no power to perform a go-around.
Cool, that endeavor was unknown to me, as were the two prototypes, not to mention the struggles and mishaps.
Great video! I never knew that the X-2 was so difficult to develop. Two small comments.
Aero engineers usually use "airfoil" to refer to the 2-D cross section of the wing, and "wing" to mean the overall 3-D shape with sweep, taper, twist, etc.
Pilots' use of "compressibiliy" may be different, but for engineers it generally means above about half the speed of sound, when there's enough dynamic pressure to compress the air. Below that speed air can be taken as incompressible without giving up much accuracy. But as you note, Rex, it's when you get local supersonic flow and shockwaves that things get really funky
When air is termed to be ‘incompressible,’ does that imply the air cannot be compressed much like a liquid cannot be compressed OR is it that you can’t compress the air at the low speed regime because there’s nothing to contain the pressure and the air just squishes out as it gets squeezed?
Don’t mock my scientific use of ‘squishes!’
@ronjon7942 yes, it's just the flow that's incompressble at low speeds. You can significantly compress trapped air in a blocked bicycle pump, on in the cylinders of a car engine, but when it's free to flow at low speeds, air just doesn't have enough inertia to get compressed much. Like you say, it just squishes out of the way!
The swept wings on the 262 were not for control. The plane wasn't fast enough for compressibility to be seen as an issue. The wing sweep moved the center of gravity towards the tail to offset the weight of the engines.
They were aware of the benefits that wing sweep gave though. For one, it gave a marginal increase in speed.
The increase was around 18kts.
8:25 The X-2 looks like it went back in time, parked next to the service truck. It’s hard to believe both vehicles are from the same era.
Rex, can you do a episode on the development of the fuselage coke bottle shape? I’ve always heard that it was developed by NACA but not how it was tested.
The designers of Saturn 5 must've thought something along the lines of 'Just not underpowered'
Yes, management could have been more conservative and yes, technical mistakes were made. But sometimes progress is achieved not by inspiration but by discovering things you should NOT do, changing your approach, and trying again. Edison’s light bulb on a larger and costlier scale. The outstanding bravery and dedication of those men goes without saying.
Note also that the compressibility chart uses silhouettes of the P-38, a design bedeviled by shockwave formation before anyone knew what that was.
Why does the wind tunnel model at 6:39 look it has swept forward wings?
is this just a weird camera angle or was this idea considered?
My thoughts too. I’m guessing weird camera angle or an illusion, but I can’t get it straightened out in my mind.
X-15 next please!!
Excellent video, thank you Rex. Just to clarify: at 05:30 the compressibility effect is mentioned. The term does not come from the flight control feel but from the actual effects of the fluid (air, in this case) compressibility and its effect on fluid mechanics. The air gets compressed due to the speed, and close to the speed of sound these effects become more apparent.
Lol I made an extremely similar comment. Glad to know I wasn't the only one thinking that.
When air is termed to be ‘incompressible,’ does that imply the air cannot be compressed much like a liquid cannot be compressed OR is it that you can’t compress the air at the low speed regime because there’s nothing to contain the pressure and the air just squishes out as it gets squeezed?
Don’t mock my scientific use of ‘squishes!’
@@ronjon7942 air is not incompressible in the general sense, in a wide variety of even daily scenarios, compressibility effects will show up. Assuming incompressibility for air is only valid for very low mach numbers. And by incompressibility, its meant that the volumetric density does not change very much while air is flowing around or through something.
XP-55 Ascender: Am I a joke to you Rex?
Compare this to Rex's own video on the DeHaviland DH108 Swallow, all four of which were destroyed in fatal crashes, including the one flown by the company founder's own son.
To think: 1950 and you'd still find Spitfires and Sea Fury + F51s and F82s . . . . By 1959, the F4H & F100 etc.
The X2 coming so soon after WW2 shows you how innovative designers were, even it went wrong at times (which you would expect a mere 50 odd years since O & W Wright at Kitty Hawk).
Aluminum not happy above 350°F? Don’t tell my aluminum baking sheets that!
Speaking of dangerous aircraft, you should put the Convair NB-36H on your list. What's more dangerous that flying with a critical nuclear reactor on board?
How do you get a Widowmaker?
You buy a field and you wait until one crushes into it.
Feeling the wind in your hair 😁
It's called "compressibility" because it involves a violation of the rule of subsonic flow - that air is an incompressible fluid. It had nothing to do with pilot reports and was known about long before anyone flew an airplane in the transonic region. Also, the leather gaskets did not "leak chemicals into the fuel tank" - the treated leather itself became shock-sensitive when exposed to the *oxidizer*, that is, liquid oxygen. Most organic materials (like asphalt, if you spill liquid oxygen on a blacktop road). do the same, which is why organic substances are not generally used in oxidizer systems.
Using an area rule fuselage would have made the swept wing x1 a viable solution
I would think so. But I inferred Rex meant something structural when he mentioned the swept wings didn’t play well with the X-1 fuselage. I guess I don’t know, what do you think?
@@ronjon7942 maybe he will scan the comments and explain
It's not called compressibility because of how flight controls may or may not feel; it's called compressibility because air is compressible and compression of the air changes its density. This causes the normal shock that can affect the effectiveness of control surfaces.
4:22 am I wrong or that is an scale model of the "mystical" ME-262 hgII?
Almost blowing your arm off to prove a point is kinda a power move
The right stuff in the wrong plane. What a waste of pilots. Their poor families ☹️
Really interesting - and just the right pace and length. One of your best. My only complaint is it didn't start with jet or rocket noise!!
I love that picture at around 12:30. Not only is the plane surrounded by men, mostly just staring at it - many, like the guy on the steps, with their hands in their pockets! - but, partially obscurred by the nose, is a technician holding, not a high-tech piece of equipment, but a giant spanner!
The fly-by-wire's built-in aileron flutter would not have been an asset.
I think we all understand that progress comes at a price, and that hindsight is 20/20. It's an unfortunate reality. Mistakes are common. but none of this occurs in a vacuum. Take the Challenger space shuttle for example. Looking back we can see that launching with O-rings that had been subjected to subfreezing temperatures was a poor decision, however, engineers were not completely convinced that it would be a problem, and had the launch been successful, we never would have given it a second thought. NASA officials were under pressure to get it done and each delay meant millions of dollars down the drain. No one sets out to kill their fellow human beings, we just have different ideas of what acceptable risk is. Some of those concepts were at play here as well.
There were engineers who were very concerned about those o-rings. They were told to shut up. Maybe no one at NASA set out to kill people, but they were clearly willing to risk those people's lives to save their careers. "I was under pressure" is a lousy excuse for getting people killed.
At 15 minutes exactly, there’s a drawing of the cockpit showing the pilots position. This ejection system they concocted, did it fire the nose forward or upwards(or down)? To me that seating position should allow a pretty decent chance of not blacking out and survival at 20g if it shot forward. I could be way of, I’ll ask the question and let those with more knowledge than I discuss.😊
When you push the limits, sometimes the limits push back.
Thanks. That was interesting.
.
Is the x-1 the only supersonic aircraft with strait wings?
Shoot. I’m thinking…
I kind of suspect that after the success of the X-1, they sort of got a little bit too confident. Sweeping the wings is a good idea to begin with. The remainder of the aircraft was just very overconfident.
I didnt know that the X 2 used stainless steel in its construction. The only other aircraft that use this ,(That I know of?) are the MiG 25 and I think, the MiG 31. Theres probably more like the MiG E 166 research aircraft, but now Im guessing. Anybody know amy other stainless birds?
XB 70 was stainless honeycomb.
Britain used stainless in several of their research aircraft.
i thought the 262 had sept wings to get the CG right with the engines stinking out in front of the wings ,
And the Me-262 only got swept wings for the same reason as the DC-1 - to maintain a flyable centre of gravity and nothing else.
_Leather_ fuel gaskets... damn those test pilots had serious cojones. This was super seat of your pants stuff