Tri-Service
On This Day: The Fastest Plane In History
In recent times military attack aircraft have been all about stealth - from the F-117 Nighthawk to the B-2 Spirit bomber, from the F-22 Raptor to the F-35 Lightning II.
In the 1950s and 60s however it was all about speed, creating aircraft capable of outrunning any missile fired at it.
Just 15 years after the piston-engined Spitfire, Messerschmit and Mustang warbirds ruled the skies, a very different breed of plane was to take aviation, quite literally, to new heights.
The list of experimental jet aircraft spawned from the ashes of the Second World War is long - too long to list here.
Developments from aircraft manufacturers across America, Britain, the Soviet Union and even Canada came in rapid succession as each nation raced to claim air superiority.
But amidst them all one aircraft stands out, holding a world record that has stood for 49 years and is unlikely to ever be surpassed.
At 4,520 miles per hour the X-15 remains the fastest manned aircraft in history. Dropped from a B-52 Stratofortress and powered by rocket engines, the three models built flew 199 missions between June 1959 and December 1968.
Pushing the science and engineering of the time to the extreme, only the best of pilots were selected to fly the top secret X-15. Among them was Neil Armstrong before he transferred to NASA's Apollo programme - the rest of course, is history.
Indeed, eight of the men who flew the X-15 qualified by US standards to be classed as astronauts, conducting their flights at an excess of 50 miles (80 kilometres) above the earth. Just one, Captain Joseph A. Walker, however exceeded the internationally-recognised definition of spaceflight, taking the aircraft to a height of over 62.1 miles (100 kilometres) in 1963.
Captain Walker, who had been a fighter pilot in World War Two, sadly died three years later when his F-104 Starfighter jet collided with a XB-70 Valkyrie - a prototype nuclear-armed supersonic strategic bomber.
The X-15 will, however, always be synonymous with Colonel William 'Pete' Knight, the man who during one of his 16 flights claimed the record for the world's fastest flight in a winged, powered aircraft.
Not all of Knight's flights however went to plan. On one occasion, while travelling at Mach 4.17, the aircraft suffered a total system failure. The test pilot calmly glided the stricken plane to an emergency landing at Mud Lake in Nevada, the remarkable escapade earning him a Distinguished Flying Cross.
Colonel Knight went on to fly 253 combat missions during the Vietnam War in a supersonic F-100 Super Sabre before returning to life as a test pilot on what became the F-15 Strike Eagle and the F-16 Fighting Falcon.
Retiring after more than 6,000 cockpit hours in 100 different aircraft, he entered the world of politics. In 2000, as a Californian Senator, he came to fame once again, authoring a state law which banned same-sex marriage.
As for the X-15, its 200th flight was postponed six times due to technical issues and poor weather before being permanently grounded in December 1968. The two remaining aircraft (the third had been lost in a fatal 1967 hypersonic crash) are now on display in museums in the United States.
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