[MikelTackNailer]

From your link:

On Apr. 20, 1962, Armstrong carried out the longest flight of the X-15 program, a duration of 12 minutes and 28 seconds. On this same flight, he achieved his highest altitude, 207,500 feet. On his return, Armstrong inadvertently pulled too high an angle of attack during pullout.

The flight path took a bounce in the atmosphere, and he overshot the Edwards Air Force Base, heading south at Mach 3 and at 100,000 feet. He was able to turn back while over the Rose Bowl in Pasadena. Almost out of kinetic and potential energy, he was just barely able to reach the south end of Rogers Dry Lake at Edwards.

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And "cruising along at the rate of ten football fields a second". Mind-boggling.

That was my exact birthday so thank you very much for posting it!

[SunkenCiv]

As he came down, he barely cleared surrounding crags. Afterward he said he had plenty of clearance, the spotter however said that he could almost have run his hand along the bottom of the fuselage. :^)