Engineering

The Fastest Manned Plane in the World: Here’s The Insane Engineering of the X-15

The greatest speed, the greatest excitement.”

Published

4 years ago

January 22, 2022

Cahid Atik

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Keypoints

The North American X-15 remains the fastest piloted aircraft ever built since its first flight in 1959.
Famous astronaut Neil Armstrong completed seven test flights in the rocket-powered plane before his historic moon landing.
NASA historians describe the X-15 as a unique engineering marvel that reached the edge of the Earth's atmosphere.

The bullet-shaped and rocket-powered North American X-15 was an engineering marvel that conducted its first flight back in 1959. Reaching the edge of space, the plane carried some famous pilots, and it still retains the title of the fastest piloted aircraft ever.

Neil Armstrong, the first person to walk on the Moon as part of NASA’s Apollo 11 program on July 20, 1969, was one of these pilots who conducted seven test flights inside the X-15.

“One of the X-15 pilots, Bill Dana, once told me that it was the big-ticket — the aircraft to fly,” said Christian Gelzer, a leading historian at NASA’s Armstrong Flight Research Center, according to CNN. “It gave you the greatest speed, the greatest excitement. We haven’t built anything since that flies within the atmosphere like the X-15.”

A video from Real Engineering tells you what lies behind the insane engineering of the X-15. You can enjoy watching the video above while figuring out the complicated engineering in question.