Milton Orville Thompson (1926–1993)

The X-15 programme ran from the late Fifties for a decade and finished in 1968. It was the latest in a line of experimental aircraft and it was designed to investigate hypersonic speeds and flight at the edge of the atmosphere and beyond. It is still in the record books as the fastest manually piloted aircraft.

I'd put off reading this book for a while, because I thought it might be a little dry. I'm interested in the topic of course, but was a little worried that it might be heavy on technical details & data, however I was dead wrong. Milton Thompson, one of the X-15 pilots, does a great job of making this book a fascinating read by filling it with loads of anecdotes and first-hand accounts of the programme, such as the occasions when he would "sneak up" behind people on the dry lake beds in a chase plane at 600 kts and pass over their heads at 10 feet. He has a dry sense of humour, and I love this kind of thing:

"The explosion destroyed the entire rear half of the aircraft and blew the front part out of the test stand. [The pilot] was not injured but the explosion really got his attention"

"Pete was spared from further warning lights by a complete electrical shut down".

... and commenting on the careers of the pilots following their time on the X-15 ...

"Neil Armstrong joined the NASA Astronaut Corps and then I lost track of him"

Much of the book deals with descriptions of the preparations, the flights and the difficulties encountered. I personally learnt a huge amount. For example I never appreciated that they flew two quite different types of flights: fairly level flights that remained fully within in the atmosphere and high altitude flight that took the pilots out of the atmosphere and earned (the USAF pilots at least) them their 'Astronaut Wings'.

Thompson wrote this book when he realised that so much time had passed there was a danger that many events and achievement of the X-15 programme would be forgotten. I'm glad he did. An essential read for anyone interested in the X-15.

There are numerous illustrations which complement the text greatly. For the completist there is a record of all 199 free flights of the X-15 plus stats on the pilots, an example flight plan and maps of the flight corridor and the emergency dry lake landing sites.

If I have any criticism at all, it could do with an index of the figures as it was frustrating flicking back to maps without knowing what page they were on. Also the final section on the current state of play in experimental aviation is a little dated and could do with a revision.

These are minor quibbles, though. A great book, which does justice to the whole X-15 programme.… (más)