Ok, one more X-15….

[dhanners]

Thought I’d surprise everyone and build… an X-15. Actually, the X-15A-2. This is 66671 as it looked on Flight 2-44-79, flown by Robert Rushworth on 18 May 1966. He hit Mach 5.43 (3,689 mph) and reached 99,000 feet.

I’ve never been a big fan of the X-15A-2. Despite setting the world speed record in October 1967, NASA didn’t really want it and it’s career was plagued by problems and mission aborts. In fact, on 2-44-79, a fuel leak through a jettison tube caused a premature burnout of the engine.

On 2-44-79, the X-15A-2 had orange ablative on the nose gear door, some panels on the right side tunnel, parts of the ventral stabilizer, the upper left horizontal stabilizer and the main gear skids. There were white stripes as camera targets on the underside of the fuselage, side tunnels and wings. There was an impact rake on the right side of the rudder; the rakes were used to measure localized airflow; during the X-15 program, the removable rakes were attached at different locations on the airframe.

This is a YukonJohn redesign and repaint of Henry Yuen’s X-15 model. I enlarged it to 1/48th. I made a number of changes to improve accuracy, including cutting apart the dorsal and ventral stabilizers to make the moveable rudders separate from the fixed stubs. I scratchbuilt the impact rake and added the associated wiring. I scratchbuilt the LR-99 motor and resized Ken West’s landing skids (printed on orange cardstock) and added the various jettison tubes and drains.

I will probably add a bit of weathering later. I may even add external tanks, which would make it Flight 2-45-81, the vehicle shown on the cover of the book “Hypersonic.”

This one was my 11th X-15 build in 1/48th scale.

[Paper Kosmonaut]

*Applauds, happily awaiting the next one* (-:



All jokes aside, this livery is very characteristic and noticeable. It shows how much almost every flight had its own looks. And how obvious it was the X-15 was a research aircraft without a definitive appearance, apart from its basic design characteristics.


And I really really enjoy how much you have sunk your teeth in the subject. Next to probably having the most comprehensive X-15 model collection in the world at home, it almost gets Warhol-esque in its repeating of the subject, like his silk screens of Marilyn or the Campbell Soup cans. Its repetitiveness and yet subtle difference between every individual iteration gets closer and closer to Modern Art. No joke! I think it's wonderful.

[Texman]

You're becoming quite the expert builder of X-15s. Great work again!

[dhanners]

Originally Posted by Paper Kosmonaut

*Applauds, happily awaiting the next one* (-:



All jokes aside, this livery is very characteristic and noticeable. It shows how much almost every flight had its own looks. And how obvious it was the X-15 was a research aircraft without a definitive appearance, apart from its basic design characteristics.


And I really really enjoy how much you have sunk your teeth in the subject. Next to probably having the most comprehensive X-15 model collection in the world at home, it almost gets Warhol-esque in its repeating of the subject, like his silk screens of Marilyn or the Campbell Soup cans. Its repetitiveness and yet subtle difference between every individual iteration gets closer and closer to Modern Art. No joke! I think it's wonderful.

Thanks — and you, too, Ray. I owe it all to YukonJohn, whose repaints have kept me going. He’s been very generous with his talents.

I’m running out of X-15 liveries that excite me, though. There are only a couple more I’d like to maybe tackle. One is 66670 on Flight 1-3-8 on 25 March 1960. It was the X-15’s first NASA flight after North American Aviation declared testing complete and handed over the keys. I’ve got the parts to build it except for the rudder. On this flight (and a few afterwards) the font of the NASA lettering in the yellow band on the rudder was very different from the later font.

Another possibility is Neil Armstrong’s first flight, 1-18-31, on 30 November 1960. The only problem is it looks just like his second flight (which I just modeled) except it had the nose boom instead of the Q Ball.

I’d like to take another crack at backdating Ken West’s X-15A-2 into the shorter X-15, maybe doing Joe Walker’s world altitude record “Little Joe the II” or the X-15 Michael Adams was flying when he had his fatal accident. The latter is more visually interesting. I’ve modeled both in 1/48th, but I think either would look great using Ken’s 1/32nd-scale kit. It takes a lot of work to backdate his model, though. When Ken was designing his X-15A-2, he said he planned to eventually do the pre-stretch version, but wound up engrossed in some other projects and never did it.

[dhanners]

A couple more shots after weathering. Some of the panels on the X-15A-2 were a more metallic black. I experimented by masking off areas, coloring them with a silver metallic marker, then immediately wiping off most of the silver with a cotton swab. Ideally, I should’ve done this before construction, but I didn’t think of it until later.

[Davej]

Nice. It is great to see all the different "colour schemes".
199 flights - only 188 builds to go.

[-Jim G]

David! Another beautiful build! I love this thread and the history I am learning.

John is a very talented graphics guy!

[MacSongLi]

Great detailing, history, build and kit. Very nicely done, David and John.

Gary