Bill Dana: Last test pilot to fly the X-15

Valley Press ^ | November 23, 2003. | DON HALEY

[BenLurkin]

It has been 35 years since NASA pilot Bill Dana landed an X-15 on the dusty lakebed at Edwards Air Force Base. It was Oct. 24, 1968, and Dana had just completed the 199th flight in the X-15 program. He was eager for another turn in the cockpit because a high-altitude camera experiment did not go well that day, and he wanted to repeat the test.

It was not to be. The X-15 program was ended less than two months later, before the 200th flight could be made, and Dana would carry the distinction of being the last pilot to fly one of the record-setting rocket-powered research aircraft.

Dana was one of 12 pilots who took a trio of X-15 research planes to new heights, literally and figuratively.

The program was seeking answers about high-speed and high-altitude flight: how well an aircraft can be controlled on the fringe of space where air is nearly absent; what the thermal stresses were on a vehicle flying at speeds that eventually reached a record 4,520 mph; and whether the pilot workload would be too great at those speeds and at altitudes of more than 354,000 feet, high enough to earn Dana and seven other X-15 pilots their astronaut wings.

The X-15 program lasted more than nine years and produced data still used by airplane and spacecraft builders, but Dana views the study of aerodynamic heating as the program's most significant contribution to the aerospace world.

"We were able to apply that data into the space shuttles," said Dana, who retired from NASA in 1998, ending a career with the agency that spanned nearly 40 years.

Streaking above the Mojave Desert at speeds of 3,000 to 4,000 mph on dozens of thermal research missions, air friction would heat the X-15's Inconel-X skin to temperatures of more than 2,000 degrees Fahrenheit in some places. Many of the heat measurements were lower than had been theorized, however, and gave researchers important data that could be transferred not only to space shuttle design engineers, but to those developing supersonic aircraft for U.S. military forces.

There also were a number of flights on which excessive spot heating developed because of surface irregularities and localized effects that could not be predicted before flight. These incidents also produced a wealth of information that would aid researchers and designers on future aircraft and space projects.

Dana has flown many other types of airplanes since his days in a narrow, cramped X-15 cockpit, but that aircraft remains the one he enjoyed the most, as he put it, "by a wide margin." He flew the stubby wing craft 16 times over the program's final three years, reaching a maximum altitude of 307,000 feet and a top speed of 3,897 mph on separate missions.

"The acceleration made it exciting," Dana said. "When you lit that rocket engine you added 2 G's that pushed you back into the seat, and by engine burnout it became almost 4 G's. You don't get a dollar ride like that very often."

Dana, now 73, still drives from his Tehachapi home to the NASA center at Edwards several days a week. He works part-time as a research consultant for a commercial contractor.

Much of the NASA effort he sees these days is development of unpiloted vehicles that will be able to fly autonomous research and reconnaissance missions for many hours - even days - high above the earth. Data collected during the flights will be transmitted to ground stations for immediate interpretation by scientists and military planners.

Dana, admired by many as the model of a stick-and-rudder aviator, says unmanned airplanes are probably here to stay.

"It hurts me to say it, but there are certain things an autopilot can do better than a real pilot," Dana said. "Autopilots can fly airplanes with great proficiency, and I think we'll eventually see unpiloted airplanes in commercial aviation - like flying freight missions without pilots. I think it's going to happen, it just may be a little while down the road."

As the world turns towards the celebration of the 100th anniversary of the Wright brothers' first flight on Dec. 17, 1903, Dana said he doesn't foresee any monumental leaps in the second century of aviation like the first, when one milestone after another was passed.

"We've solved all the easy problems these past 100 years," he said wryly. "We're facing all the hard ones now. The next 100 years won't have as many break-through developments like the jet engine, building an airplane out of composite materials or going supersonic for the first time."

Dana does suggest that one of the many "hard ones" to be solved in coming years is development of an operational hypersonic air-breathing jet engine. That engine, called a SCRAMjet, or supersonic combustion ramjet, is a powerplant under development by NASA. If perfected, Dana says it may eventually push a hypersonic transport to speeds of more than 5,000 mph.

"Its first use would probably be as a military vehicle," said Dana, a 1952 West Point graduate. "They're the ones who can afford something like that. And maybe after the SCRAMjet is flown on a military vehicle, we can have a successful hypersonic transport. There's a market for these types of engines - and that would be a big advancement for aviation."

Dana's interest in aviation dates to his school days in Bakersfield before World War II. A class assignment by a sixth-grade teacher had each student build and fly a glider with a three-foot-long wingspan. That project, along with admiring military aircraft flying over the city after the war began, heightened his aviation interest enough to put him in a uniform and become a fighter pilot once he graduated from West Point.

After ending his military service in 1956, Dana's goal was to be a test pilot and he pursued a graduate degree in aeronautical engineering at USC. Two years later, on a visit to Edwards for job interviews with two aircraft companies, he was intrigued by the then-National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics, or NACA, facility. During a lunch break between interviews, he stopped and was given a hangar tour by NACA pilot Jack McKay, who also flew the X-15 several years later.

"I was offered a job that day as a research engineer, with a good chance of transferring later to the pilot office," Dana said. "I was the 'kid in a candy store' and couldn't have been happier. My first day of work was Oct. 1, 1958 - the same day that NACA became NASA. So I may have been the first new employee hired by the new NASA."

Eleven months later, after several engineering assignments, Dana was transferred into the pilot office, his hopes of flying test missions fulfilled. Though the X-15 highlights his career, Dana had scores of other important flying assignments. Among them, he was a key pilot in the wingless lifting body research program, he was a co-project pilot on the F-18 High Angle of Attack research program, and he flew dozens of missions researching and developing electronic systems and advanced flight controls on specialized research versions of F-16 and F-111 aircraft.

"I liked the solitude of flying," Dana said, "but it was exciting being on the NASA team. We all worked together and usually ended up with the answers we set out to get. We had a lot of success."

[BenLurkin]

:"RECORD SETTER - Former NASA pilot Bill Dana is pictured in front of a replica of the X-15 at the NASA Dryden facility. Dana has the distinction of being the last pilot to fly one of the record-setting rocket-powered research aircraft. Don Haley

[dighton]

[JoJo Gunn]

[BenLurkin]

Sullivan: "So, is that your crash helmet?"

Jimenez: "Oh, I hope not!"

[BenLurkin]

Cool!

[Professional Engineer]

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