NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS) 19980169231: Wingless Flight: The Lifting Body Story

256 Pages·12.9 MB·English

by  NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

NASA SP-4220
Flight
Wingless
The Lifting Body Story
R. Dale Reed
with Darlene Lister
Foreword by General Chuck Yeager
The NASA History Series
National Aeronautics and Space Administration
NASA History Office
Office of Policy and Plans
Washington, DC 1997
Library of Congress cataloging-in-PuMi~ationD ata
Reed, R. Dale, 1930
a'inglrss Fligllt: The I.tfting Bod) Stoq/R. Dale Rrrtl,
H I ID~d rlenc C15ter: foreword bg Chuck ledger.
p. cm.-(SP; 1220. NAS,1 Histot7 Series)
111rludrsI ~ibliographicalr eferences (p. ) and index.
1. Lifting bodies-United States-Design ant1 construction-
History. 2. NASA Dryden Flight Research Center-History.
I. Lister, Darlene, 1945- . 11. Title. 111. Series: NASA SP; 4220.
11: Seri~sN: ASA HistoricaI Series.
TL'ilS.i.R44 IN7 629.133'3-dc21
For sale by the U.S. Government Printing Office
Superintendent of Dcrumenh, Mail Stop: SSOP, Washington, DC 20402.9328
ISBN 0-16-049390-0
ISBN 0-16 -049390-0
DEDICATED TO BRAVERY AND FAITH
Paul Bikle
A leader u~hob elieved in our cause and put his career at high risk bj hae'ing$~irh in
us to meet our commitments.
Milt Thotnpson
A research test pilot z~~hnoot only put his lge at risk but exhibited complete faith in
1~1inglessfEi~ahntd those of us who made it happen.
CONTENTS
...
....................................
Acknowledgments
111
Foreword ...........................................v
..
Introduction ........................................
VII
Chapter 1 The Adventure Begins ......................- 1
Chapter 2 "Flying Bathtub" ..........................1 9
........................
Chapter 3 Commitment to Risk 41
Chapter 4 On to the Heavyweights ....................- 65
Chapter 5 Angry Machines .......................... -87
Chapter 6 Back to the Drawing Board ..................1 11
....................
Chapter 7 Wingless Flight Matures 129
Chapter 8 Lifting-Body Racehorses ....................1 55
..................
Chapter 9 Wingless Flight Lives On -179
Appendix .........................................1.9 3
Glossary ..........................................2 01
Bibliography ......................................2.1 1
About the Author ..................................2.1 5
.............................................
Index 217
The NASA History Series ...........................2.2 7
WING1,ESS FLIGHT
Foreword
When Dale Reed asked me to write the foreword to his book, Wingless Flight: The
Lifting Body Story, I had to think back a long ways to remember the day that Paul
Rikle asked me to fly the M2-F1 lifting body. It was a very interesting program that
would give a space vehicle similar to the present day space shuttle the ability to
maneuver. During the time that the lifting body program was being flown, space cap-
sules were re-entering the Earth's atmosphere in a ballistic path and had very little
ability to maneuver.
The concept behind the lifting body program was to investigate the ability of the pilot
to land in a horizontal mode which required an excessive angle of attack to flare. I
enjoyed flying the lifting body and probably found it easier to Ay than most pilots
because of my experience with the XF-92 airplane which landed with extremely high
angles of attack similar to those later experienced with lifting bodies.
Dale's book covers the warm things that go on during the test programs at Edwards Air
Force Base, California. Dale has emphasized the cooperative effort that must take
place between the people he calls the Real Stuff (people who create and service the
flying machines) and the Right Stuff (pilots who fly the machines). Most of the NASA
lifting body crews (about 90 percent) were made up of ex-military mechanics and
technicians, mostly Air Force and of excellent caliber. I owe a deep debt of gratitude
to many an aircraft crew chief in my career. These crew chiefs provided me with air-
craft in first-class condition to fly by working themselves and their people long hours
to stay on schedule.
Test pilots, on the other hand, were a different story. Dale, being a pilot himself, could
see the undercurrent that flows in the macho world of test pilots. Competition has
always existed between pilots. There was a special kind of competition between Air
Force and NASA test pilots, and Dale has covered it very well in this book.
The lifting hotly story covers a little known period at Edwards Air Force Base, and it
fills a gap during the transition from space capsules to maneuvering space vehic-les.
Chuck Yeager
B/Gen., USAF, Ret.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
I uoul(1 like to express my appreciation to the following people for their contributions
to this book: Dr. J. D. Hutlley, NASA Dryden Historian, who took on the task of
reviewing my original manuscript to ensure that it was internally consistent, written
for the proper audience, ant1 historically accurate. Dr. Hunley added footnotes,
expanded and edited the glossary, and compiled the present bibliography. Dr. Hunley
also enlisted Dr. Darlene 1,ister to reorganize the original manuscript for a smooth pre-
sentation to the reading audience. To Richard P. Hallion, who is probablj this coun-
try's best aviation historian, for his generous offer to allow information from his hooks
and documents, including On the Frontier, Test Pilots, and The Hypersonic
Ret~oltttiont,o be incorporated into this hook. His attention to detail on facts, dates,
and management of early aircraft development programs made it easier to correlate my
own personal story of the lifting-body program with other activities of the time.
Also, I would like to thank Robert Kempel and Wen Painter for their generous offer to
allow me to use portions of their personal story of the HI,-10 Lifting Body entitled
Developing and Flight Testing the HL-10 Lifting Body: A Precursor to the
Spare Shuttle, a NASA Reference Publication published in April 1994, to be used
in this book.
For their contributions to the book's technical accuracy, I \rouId like to thank the fol-
lowing people who reat1 the original nlanuscript and in some cases, the reorganized
version, and providecl technical corrections where appropriate: Bill Dana, Chuck
Yeager, John Manke, and Bruce Peterson, lifting body pilots; and Robert Hoey, Bob
Kempel, Wen Painter, Ed Saltzman, and Joe Wilson, lifting body engineers.
Thanks also to Betty Love, aeronautical research technician, for contril~utingb oth
recorcled and unrecorded flight records on original M2-F1 flights and for her com-
ments on the reorganized version of the manuscript; John Muratore, X-38 program
manager at NASA's Johnson Space Center, for reviewing the portion of the last chap-
ter on the X-38p rogram; David Urie, from Lockheed, and Steve Ishmael, from NASA,
for reviewing the portion of the last chapter dealing with the X-33 program;
the NASA Headquarters Printing and Design office-Vanessa Nugent and Kimberly
Jenkins for their Design and Editorial work, as well as Stanley Al-tis and Michael
Crnkovic who saw the 1)ook through the printing process.
R. Dale Reed, Aerospace Engineer
NASA Dryclen Flight Research Center
August 1997
INTRODUCTION
Wingbss Flight tells the story of the most unusual flying machines ever flown,
the lifting bodies. It is my story about my friends and colleagues who con~niittecla sig-
nificant part of their lives in the 1960s and 1970s to prove that the concept was a
viahle one for use in spacecraft of the future. This story, filled with drama and adken-
ture, is about the twelve-year period from 1963 to 1975 in which eight different lift-
ing-body configurations flew. It is appropriate for me to write the story, since I was the
engineer who first presented the idea of flight-testing the concept to others at the
NASA Flight Research Center. Over those twelve years, I experienced the story as it
unfolded day by day at that remote NASA facility northeast of Los Angeles in the
bleak Mojave Desert.
Benefits from this effort immediately influenced the design and operational con-
cepts of the winged NASA Shuttle Orbiter. However, the full benefits would not be
realized until the 1990s when new spacecraft such as the X-33 and X-38 would fully
employ the lifting-body concept.
A lifting body is basically a wingless vehicle that flies due to the lift generated by
the shape of its fuselage. Although both a lifting reentry vehicle and a ballistic cap-
sule had been considered as options during the early stages of NASA's space program,
NASA initially opted to go with the capsule. A number of individuals were not con-
tent to close the book on the lifting-body concept. Researchers including Alfred
Eggers at the NASA Ames Research Center conducted early wind-tunnel experi-
ments, finding that half of a rounded nose-cone shape that was flat on top and round-
ed on the bottom could generate a lift-to-drag ratio of about 1.5 to 1. Eggers'
preliminary design sketch later resembled the basic M2 lifting-body design. At the
NASA Langley Research Center, other researchers toyed with their own lifting-body
shapes.
Meanwhile, some of us aircraft-oriented researchers at th_e NASA Flight Research
Center at Edwards Air Force Base (AFB) in California were experiencing our own fas-
cination with the lifting-hody concept. A model-aircraft builder and private pilot on
my own time, I found tlie lifting-body idea intriguing. I built a model based on Eggrrs'
design, tested it repeatedly, made modifications in its control and balance character-
istics along the way, then eventually presented the concept to others at the Center,
using a film of its flights that mj wife, Donna and I had made with our 8-mm home
camera. I recruited the help of fellow engineer Dick Eldredge and research pilot Milt
Thompson, especially in later selling the idea to others, including Paul Bikle, then the
director of the NASA Flight Research Center (redesignated in 1976 the Hugh L.
Dryden Flight Research Center). What followed was history, and telling for the first
time in print that historic story of the lifting bodies in full and living detail is what this
1)ook is all about.
INTRODUCTION
Dale Reed holding the originalfree-flight model of the M2-FlJilmed in 8 mm movies used to convince Dryden
and Ames managers to support the program. Thefull-scale M2-Fl jbwn later is in the background. (NASA
photo EC67 16475)
WINGLESS FLIGHT
Between 1963 and 1975, eight lifting-body configurations were flown at the NASA
Flight Research Center at Edwards AFB. They varied tremendously-from the
unpowered, bulbous, lightweight plywood M2-F1 to the rocket-powered, extra-sleek,
all-metal supersonic X-24B. Some configurations, such as the M2-F2, not only pushed
the limits of both design engineers and test pilots but also were dangerous to fly. Film
footage of the 1967 crash of the M2-F2, after test pilot Bruce Peterson lost control of
this particularly "angry machine," was used about two years later as the lead-in to
weekly episodes of a popular television series, The Six-Million-Dollar Man, which
ran for about six years. Although the M2-F2 crash was spectacular enough to inspire
the concept for a popular television series, it was the only serious accident that
occurred over the slightly more than twelve years of lifting-body flight-testing.
But danger has always lurked at the edge of flight innovation. All eight of these
wingless wonders, the lifting bodies, were considered the flying prototypes for future
spacecraft that could land like an airplane after the searing heat of reentry from outer
space. The precursors of today's Shuttle and tomorrow's X-33 and X-38, the lifting
bodies provided the technical and operational engineering data that has shaped the
space transportation systems of today and tomorrow.
The Place and the People
The story of the lifting bodies is not just a story about wingless machines that fly.
It is a story as much about people and the unique environment of the NASA facility
at Edwards AFB as it is about airplanes. The driving force behind the lifting-body pro-
gram was the small contingent of people at the NASA Flight Research Center at
Edwards AFB in the western Mojave Desert northeast of Los Angeles.
Brought together originally in 1946 to flight-test the Bell XS-1, this little group of
strong-minded individuals was also drawn to this remote facility because of their love
for airplanes and the adventure of flight-testing. Being surrounded by aviation
history in the making was enough to keep motivation flying high.
The NASA facility at Edwards-called initially the National Advisory Committee
for Aeronautics (NACA) Muroc Flight Test Unit-was paradise to these lovers of air-
planes. It was a place where people got their hands dirty working on aircraft, a place
where they had the freedom to kick an airplane tire at any time. It was a place where
test pilots, engineers, mechanics, and technicians all breathed the same air and
walked the same halls, shops, and hangar floors. It was a place where they could take
a few minutes off from tightening a bolt on an aircraft to watch a new airplane design
making a flyover. The boss probably was also an airplane lover, and more than likely,
he too had stopped whatever he was doing to watch the same flyover. And it was a
INTRODUCTION
place where about the most exciting thing in life was being involved as a volunteer in
a new program.
In 1963, the lifting-body program began, circumventing the normal bureaucratic
process by launching itself as a bottom-up program. It began when an enthusiastic
engineer drew together a band of engineers, technicians, ant1 pilots-all volunteers,
of course-and then moved ahead, bypassing the ponderous amount of paperwork and
delays of months or even years typically involved in officnially initiating approved and
funded aerospace programs in that era.
Besides tapping into the volunteer spirit present in the 1960s at the NASA Flight
Research Center, the unofficial lifting-body program also used creative methods to
locate funds. Shortly before his death in January 1991, Paul Bikle explained how that
was done, saying "it was a real shoestring operation. We didn't get any money from
anybody. We just built it out of money we were supposed to use to maintain the facil-
ity."] As the program grew over the years to involve flight-testing eight different con-
figurations, it became more disciplined and organized. Even then, however, it was still
intlividuals-not organizations-that made things happen.
The lifting-body concept was a radical departure frorri the aerodynamics of con-
ventional winged aircraft, and it was the operational experience of the NASA and Air
Force people at Edwards AFB that made the program a reality. Setting the stage for
the lifting-body program was the long experience of these engineers, technicians, and
pilots over previous decades in flight-testing experimental, air-launched, and rocket-
boosted gliders from the XS-1 to the X-15.
A special kind of camaraderie existed among the otherwise competitive NASA
and Air Force people and aircraft contractors who worked in the shops and labs of this
relatikely isolated facility. Often, for example, a mechanic who needed a special tool
or piece of equipment would go next door on the flight line to a competing contractor
and borrow what was needed. Flight-testing was difficult, demanding, and time-criti-
cal work. By helping each other get through critical times, everyone benefited from the
unofficial cooperation that was a hallmark of the facility even then.
An anti-waste mentality M7as another hallmark of Edwards at the time. If an old
piece of equipment could do the job as well as a new piece of equipment, why spend
the money and time developing the new piece of equipment when the program could
be moved along spredily by refurbishing and using the old one? One of the best exam-
ples of this recycling was the extensive use made of Thiokol's Reaction Motors
1. Qtlotrd in Stephan Wilkinson, "Thr I.egacy of the Lifting BucJy," Air & Space (AI)rilhlay l991),
p. 54.