X-15 Pilots Finally Get Astronaut Wings

Ginnungagap42 writes "NASA has a story about pilots Bill Dana, John McKay and Joe Walker finally receiving their astronauts wings for their work in the X-15 program back in the 1960's. Astronauts wings were awarded to the USAF personnel in the 1960's, but not to the civilian NASA pilots until now. The X-15 program was an important testbed for hypersonic flight. It's nice that all the pilots who flew high and fast are finally being recognized."

Comments

Tom Wolfe mentioned this

[Mark of THE CITY]

In "The Right Stuff," Wolfe mentioned that the NASA X-15 pilots didn't qualify for astronaut wings. Supposedly, a party was held for one of them after his qualifying flight. He was a pair of cardboard wings labelled "Asstronaut."

joe walker

[Anonymous Coward]

just FYI I dont know about the first two test pilots but joe walker died in a jet crash in like the late 60's or early 70's. In fact my middle schools name was joe walker in honor of his life since he died while the school was being built or just after it was built (sorry its been a long time since middle school heh). It was pretty cool because I was actually doing a research project on him for the school website and I actually remember we found an old 8mm in the school attic of 'this is your life... joe walker'

Re:NASA Page for X-15

[PWatson]

Uhh, the link seems to be missing. Therefore, here are the NASA and Wikipedia links to X-15 articles for your reading enjoyment.

Re:A little OT:

[chl]

Funny stories. Just a little nitpick: 60000ft would be flight level (FL) 600. The lowest flight level is FL180, which is at a pressure altitude of 18000ft, which in standard atmospheric conditions is 18000ft above sea level. Pressure altitude is the altitude inferred from the ambient pressure. It coincides with the real altitude only at standard atmospheric conditions, i.e. no high, no lows, no hot or cold day.

This means that, if pressure or temperature are lower than standard, the flight levels come down accordingly, so FL180 could actually be *below* 17500ft. Consequently, FL180 to FL185 are not used on those days.

Below 18000ft, pressure altitude is usually corrected for non-standard pressure, and that corrected value is shown on the altimeter. This makes it easier to find your altitude above ground level, which is important for clearing obstacles and landing at airports, whose elevations are given in "real" ft above mean sea level. At higher altitudes, these ground problems are not so relevant, and the flight level scale is used.

chl