X 24a Plane
The aircraft flew 36 times between 1973 and 1975.
X 24a plane. It was designed and built to test lifting body concepts experimenting with the concept of unpowered reentry and landing later used by the space shuttle. This page details the development and operational history of the martin x 24a technology demonstrator aircraft including technical specifications and pictures. The aurora xv 24 lightningstrike is an experimental unmanned aerial vehicle created by aurora flight sciences and partners rolls royce and honeywell. The x 24a was the fourth lifting body design to fly.
The x 24a made its first unpowered flight on april 17 1969 with air force maj. 1 4x24 first focal plane ffp rifle scope illuminated rangfinder reticle fde tan. Air force and martin aircraft company. 1910 24 corrugated bottom very fine.
Stanley bed rock sw 608 hand plane 1895. The x 24a paved the way for the space shuttle by showing that a lifting body could glide through the atmosphere and land on earth like an airplane. That a wingless aircraft could descend from the upper atmosphere and glide safely back to earth. It followed the nasa m2 f1 in 1964 the northrop hl 10 in 1966 the northrop m2 f2 in 1968 and preceded the northrop m2 f3 1970.
The aircraft was in fact a heavily modified version of the preceding x 24a mainly due to the higher performance expected of this second round of tests both vehicles developed by martin marietta now lockheed martin. It was developed for the vertical take off and landing experimental aircraft program. The grandfather of the modern space shuttle had been born. Ending today at 11 02am pdt 9h 4m.
X 24 flights focused on the last stage of re entry from space with pilots flying lifting bodies at speeds of around 1 000 mph and altitudes of around 70 000 feet. Gentry s landing of martin marietta s extraordinary x 24a lift body plane had proven what many scientists had thought impossible. Gentry at the controls. The x 24b was the last of the lifting body aircraft to fly and demonstrated that accurate unpowered reentry vehicle landings were operationally feasible.