Bearing body

Special design of the aircraft. The effect of Portance is not produced any more by the wings of the apparatus, but by the body him even. This design finds its utility for the space engines or Hypersonique S by limiting the effect of trailed or surfaces it friction.

Problems

The problem with the hypersonic planes or the space engines equipped with wings is that it must be conceived to be able to resist the mechanical constraints and the forces of friction generating of high temperatures during hypersonic flights or of sunken atmospheric. One of the solution considered was to remove the wings and to make generate the effect of bearing pressure by the body of the machine and not by those. The Space shuttle answers this design partly, but it is based rather on the principle of the delta wings.

Research

Research on the bearing bodies starts in 1962 with Dale Reed of the Dryden Flight Research Center of NASA. A first scale model 1 NASA M2-F1 was built out of wood. The first tests took place on the ground, the prototype was fixed on the top of a modified Pontiac catalina. Later the protype was tested like a sailplane behind a C-47. The M2-F1 was soon called “ the flying bathtub ”, the flying bath-tub.

In 1963, NASA started to test more powerful prototypes propelled by engines of rocket and released by B-52.

One of the encountered main issues was the separation of the flow of air. Indeed this one becomes very turbulent with the back causing the loss of control and of bearing pressure. The problem was partially solved by inclining the side vertical stabilizers and by increasing the central vertical stabilizer.

Conclusion

The crash landing of the prototype NASA ME-F2 is at the origin of the television series of the years 1970 the man who was worth 3 billion. The introduction of the series shows the crash landing of the machine on the track. The pilot Bruce Peterson survived the incident and the prototype was rebuilt under the name NASA M2-F3.

The public did not almost never intend to speak about this concept or saw prototypes. However the concept was included in many studies of which the Lockheed Martin X-33

Pilots and flight on the bearing bodies

Wood , Hates and Engle each one making only one test on the ground of the M2-F1 carried by a car.

See too

Dryden Flight Research Center
Specifications of the bearing body (NASA)
HL-10
M2-F1
M2-F2
M2-F3
X-24A and X24B
Short history of the M2-F1
History of the bearing body
Wingless Flight: The Face lift Body Story. NASA History Series SP-4220 1997 pdf

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