laststandonzombieisland

At the National Air and Space Administration test pilot Bill Dana was at the controls of the North American X-15 rocket-propelled research aircraft when it made the 199th–and what turned out to be the final–flight of the X-15 program. It was Dana’s 16th flight in X-15s. A 200th flight was planned but never carried out.

He was flying the X-15-1 (AF Ser. No. 56-6670), which had been the first of three aircraft to participate in a series of tests that spanned a decade and resulted in major advances for America’s space flight program.

In the course of that research, the X-15s spent 18 hours flying above Mach 1, 12 hours above Mach 2, nearly 9 hours above Mach 3, almost 6 hours above Mach 4, one hour above Mach 5 and a few short minutes above Mach 6. The X-15 was hailed by the scientific community as the most successful research aircraft of all time.

During the program, 13 flights by eight pilots met the Air Force spaceflight benchline by exceeding the altitude of 264,000 feet/50 miles (80 km), thus qualifying these pilots as being astronauts. Dana himself, who touched 3,897 mph and reached 307,000 feet in the X-15 program, was one of these men.

X-15A-1, Dana’s last bird, is on display in the National Air and Space Museum “Milestones of Flight” gallery, Washington, D.C.

X-15A-2, (AF Ser. No. 56-6671), is at the National Museum of the United States Air Force, at Wright-Patterson Air Force Base.

X-15A-3, (AF Ser. No. 56-6672– shown above with Dana) crashed 15 Nov. 1967, taking pilot Michael J. Adams, USAF, with her.

Dana, USMA Class of ’52, was an Air Force officer chopped over to NASA in the early 1960s and retired in 1998 as Chief Engineer at NASA’s Dryden Flight Research Center, Edwards Air Force Base, California. On 23 August 2005, NASA officially conferred on Dana his Astronaut Wings at age 75, almost 40 years after he earned them.

He died in 2014 at age 83.