This
is a replica of the X-15/NB-52A Mothership from the mission dated April 20th,
1962. Neil Armstrong was the pilot of the X-15 ship number 3 (66672).
This was the famed “re-entry skip”. During re-entry into the
atmosphere the X-15, due to too shallow an angle of attack, actually “bounced
off of the atmosphere”. This altered the mission profile such that Neil
almost landed at Los Angeles International Airport (one of the emergency runways
on the list) He did safely land at Rogers Dry Lakebed next to Edwards Air
Force Base, and the rest was history. This was the longest mission of all
X-15 missions flown: 12 minutes, 28 seconds. The information
gathered during this mission was pivotal in the understanding of re-entry
physics, since at the time they did not have computer simulated models
available.
Click on
images below to see larger images
This
model was originally a Minicraft 1/144 scale B-52H. I used a Golden Dragon
Productions X-15 with home-made decals (the decals provided were of poor
quality), along with accessory details provided by my spares box.
Meteor
Productions (R.I.P.) provided the conversion kit along with the NB-52A decals.
The parts fit well enough and the decals were excellent. Testors metallic
aluminum and aluminum foil (to simulate skin stress) was used, along with a
home-made concoction of day-glo orange. The X-15 photo album by Tony Landis
was an excellent resource.
Tom
|