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Legendary astronaut and former Navy pilot received a pair of honorary Naval Astronaut Wings in a ceremony aboard USS Dwight D. Eisenhower (CVN 69) (Ike) March 10 in recognition for his dedicated service to the Navy and in the field of space exploration. Neil Armstrong, the first man to set foot on the moon July 20, 1969, was aboard Ike as part of the "Legends of Aerospace" tour sponsored by Morale Entertainment. "Today is a special occasion for all of naval aviation. As you can imagine, it is a tremendous honor for me to present Neil Armstrong with astronaut wings,"...

In the cockpit of the sleek, black aircraft slung underneath the wing of the B-52 bomber, my interphone crackles. "Ah, Robert, it’s a lovely morning," says Jack Allavie, the commander of the B-52 launch aircraft. "Yes it is, Jack," I respond while running through the preflight checklist for our July 17, 1962 mission. The North American Aircraft X-15 was designed to investigate flight at hypersonic (Mach 5-plus) speeds and extremely high altitudes, and the effects of aerodynamic heating on aircraft surfaces. It was the first aircraft to fly Mach 4, Mach 5, and Mach 6—and I had the good fortune...

When Robert White shot through the sky in a rocket-powered X-15 airplane nearly 50 years ago, he earned a place in the development of America's space program that those in the field still talk about. First to break Mach 4 — four times the speed of sound. First to break Mach 5. First to break Mach 6 —more than 4,000 miles per hour. All in a few short months in 1961. Then in 1962 the young test pilot with Hollywood good looks nosed his airplane 59 miles above the earth to be the first to take a winged craft into...

Those of us in flight test at California’s Edwards Air Force Base in 1959 accused the Lockheed F-104 Starfighter production engineers of turning the designer’s drawings upside down. The wings of most aircraft employed dihedral—they were set at a slightly upward angle—but the F-104’s wings angled in the opposite direction; the horizontal stabilizer and elevator sat atop the vertical stabilizer instead of below it; and the ejection seat fired down instead of up.We could recover from the spin that resulted from the aircraft pitching up uncontrollably when it stalled,which was due to the T-tail configuration, but most pilots who used...

EDWARDS AFB - Forty years ago NASA pilot Bill Dana made the final flight of the X-15, marking the end of the line for what many consider to be the most successful research airplane in history. How the program team responded to this adversity provides lessons for today's research and space exploration efforts, author Dennis Jenkins said Friday. Jenkins, author of "X-15: Extending the Frontiers of Flight," NASA's definitive history of the program, discussed the trials and triumphs of the X-15 at Dryden Flight Research Center before an appreciative crowd that included many of the program's original participants. The event...

Test pilot Joe Walker was killed June 8, 1966, when his F-104 chase plane collided in midair with an XB-70 supersonic bomber during a formation flight for a publicity photo. The catastrophic accident took the life of the top NASA test pilot, who earned astronaut wings by piloting the X-15 into space three times, as well as that of Air Force Maj. Carl Cross, one of two pilots of the XB-70. Thursday, on the 40th anniversary of that fateful flight, Walker's son and other admirers visited the crash site in a remote portion of the Mojave Desert to pay their...

Breaking on CNN web page from AP report.

EDWARDS AIR FORCE BASE, Calif. (AP) Three NASA pilots who were aboard the X-15 rocket plane in the 1960s received their astronaut wings in a ceremony recognizing their spaceflight successes. Bill Dana, John Jack McKay and Joe Walker were among eight pilots who took the research aircraft above the 50-mile altitude boundary that the military marks as the edge of space. While the other five to reach such heights were Air Force pilots and recognized as astronauts by the service, at the time NASA did not award wings of any kind to its own pilots. On Tuesday, the three...

Rocketplane has modest goals to achieve passenger service in a flight envelope that was tested 45 years ago with X-15. This will be risky, but the bulk of the challenge will be engineering and economics and no longer science.

The nation's first astronaut to die in the course of a space mission will be remembered with a monument at the remote desert crash site where he perished 37 years ago. Air Force Maj. Michael Adams earned his astronaut wings by piloting the X-15 rocket plane above 262,000 feet, the altitude the Air Force considered the minimum boundary for spaceflight. But during a flight in the third X-15 aircraft on Nov. 15, 1967, Adams died in a crash upon returning from the edge of space. Now, Eagle Scout candidate John Bodylski and aerospace historian Greg Frazier will honor the test...

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...

LOS ANGELES - One was a rocket plane that flew at the edge of space and with blistering speed. The other was a series of odd-shaped aircraft designed to fly and land without wings. Both research programs are direct ancestors of today's space shuttle, making space travel in reusable, winged vehicles possible, and contributed much to aeronautical knowledge in general. A joint Air Force and NASA research program, the X-15 is considered one of the most successful ever, completing 199 flights from 1959 to 1968 using the skies and dry lake beds of Edwards Air Force Base. A. Scott Crossfield...

State Sen. William J. "Pete" Knight said Tuesday that it is going to take a "mini-revolution" to turn around the state of California. "I don't mean shoot 'em up," he said. "California's being governed by San Francisco and Los Angeles," said the Palmdale Republican, addressing about 50 members of the Greater Antelope Valley Chamber of Commerce during a luncheon at the AV Country Club. "California is sinking under the influence of the liberal Democrats," Knight said.Knight scoffed at criticisms by recall opponents that the attempt to oust Gov. Gray Davis impedes the Democratic process. Reading from a list of names,...

LANCASTER - A Columbia High School may be in the future of the Antelope Valley Union High School District. However, which school should bear the honor to memorialize the seven astronauts who perished above the skies of Texas remains to be seen. The Antelope Valley Teachers Association called for the new William J. "Pete" Knight High School to be renamed Columbia High in honor of the shuttle craft whose 20-year-plus history was so dependent on Edwards Air Force Base Plant 42 in Palmdale and the NASA Dryden Flight Research Center.

PALMDALE - While the debate over colors and mascot still rages, the question of curriculum and sports programs for the new William J. "Pete" Knight High is more defined, school officials said.