Douglas X-3 Stilleto - The Dagger That Could Barely Fly
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- Опубліковано 20 вер 2024
- When WW2 ended, the US began conducting experiments with aircraft capable of Mach 1 speed at a steady pace. US engineers knew that supersonic fighters and jets were the future of aerial combat.
Some designs were successful, but with technology advancing quickly with every new discovery, the US Air Force wanted to take it to the next level.
With the sole purpose of getting ahead of the Soviet Union in the arms race, the rising enemy of the decades-long Cold War, the US government was focused on developing cutting edge military-grade technology before the Soviets did.
The US Army and USAF requested aircraft companies to develop a design capable of reaching or surpassing Mach 2 and maintaining such speed.
The result was the ambitious Douglas X-3 Stiletto.
Produced by the renowned Douglas Aircraft Company, who gave the US and the Allies the legendary Douglas SBD, nicknamed Slow But Deadly, and the rugged A-20 Havoc, the Stiletto was a unique piece of engineering.
It was the sleekest of the early experimental aircraft of supersonic speeds. It was a one-man jet made entirely of aluminum with a very unique look never quite seen before.
Nonetheless, although the long and slim fuselage had the looks to accomplish its goals, the X-3 Stiletto fell short of its performance goals. It proved underpowered to the grand idea of reaching Mach 2, as it could barely get to Mach 1.
It's testing, though, gave engineers the insights needed to produce the Lockheed F-104 Starfighter. This plane had a similar trapezoidal wing and could successfully reach Mach 2 speeds easily.
Today, the Douglas X-3 Stiletto is remembered for its slender look and its ambitious capabilities that distanced its design from other iconic Douglas aircraft that were bulky, rugged, and built for intense combat situations.
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This video doesn't mention that the X-3 also had a big drag problem because of the "Area Rule" phenomenon. Later Mach 2 aircraft solved this problem by using a "pinched" or "Coke bottle" fuselage profile in the area where the wing joins the air-frame. You will notice the X-3 fuselage sides are perfectly straight at that location. My college mechanical drawing teacher, Mr. Gibbs, (who designed the landing gear of the P-38 while working for Lockheed as an engender before WW2), explained this aerodynamic phenomenon to us . He retired from Lockheed in the mid 50's but not before working for a while on the XF-104 project. He became a teacher after retirement, but died from cancer in 1965.
What a privilege to have a professor with that kind of background. I gave him a lot of credibility
@@raymondweaver8526; and on top of that, he was a hell of a nice guy. We were all sad when he passed.
Thank you for sharing. That was pretty interesting
@mandellorian I believe it's because most modern fighters rely more on Super cruise rather than lighting the thirsty afterburners so that the planes range could be extended to further mission parameters
I wound up meeting the man who set the speed records in the f-104 starfighter, David Waldrop "the shark" lol cool guy. I was a kid at an airshow, and he let me put on his flight helmet
Even though it didn’t perform as expected, I am glade it didn’t cost any lives, that it survived and was preserved.
The wings are too short!!! There I figured it out with one glance... The designer needs his head examined or should have stuck to working on the set of flash Gordon.
To fix it would need Delta wing's & nose canards also flight computer to improve stability
Research and development is as much about finding out what doesn't work as it is about finding out what does.
Then again, silly putty was pure serendipity.
One of the sleekest looking craft in the collection at Wright-Patterson. Looks like its doing Mach 2 standing still.
Meanwhile asymmetric wing plane does great... Wtf
I remember being a kid in teh 80s before they put up barriers. This was one that was low enough I could stick my head in the exhaust outlet.
I guess looks aren't everything. 😬
@Jack King 😂😂😂😂😂 Just glad it didn't take out any pilots.
Yes it does!
Aircraft nearly kills test pilot.
Test Pilot: "Again! Again!"
It's a thin line between bravery and insanity. Piloting a jet alone is brave, flying something experimental is mental.
Single engine landing, on afterburner..... Jesus.
@@Zaprozhan And even Jesus is sweating during that one.
@@theFLCLguy yep one man runs at the enemy alone and is shot ‘he must have gone mad’, one man runs at the enemy and takes out a machine gun nest and is shot and it’s ‘give that man a medal’.
Why do you think the first astronauts were test pilots?
I still think the Stiletto got ripped off. It's like driving a Ferrari with the engine of a Fiat Panda. Not quite fair.
Maybe it should have been more like a Lotus with a Toyota four cylinder?
They didn't have CAD or carbon fiber composites (or any composites). Any more power and It would have torn itself to shreds during simple manoeuvres.
@Charles Yuditsky - Yeah, if it pulled that crap at just over Mach 1, at Mach 2 it would have been even worse.
@Charles Yuditsky Have you heard of any simulation of the X-3? I know the ME-163 Komet was tested and found to be incapable of supersonic flight even with a higher ISP fuel and motor. I.e. tested using computer simulation, that is.
@@fiftystate1388 through the 50s and on into the 70s it was drawing board, then wind tunnel testing. Computers were only used in the periphery, checking calculations mainly. Mainframes at this point had as much processing power as a mid-1980 era washing machine, and slower inputs.
Another thing you need to consider is where they got the data that built the simulators used today. These flying test beds of the 'X' program provided much of that data.
The tail section where the engine exhaust is looks very F4 phantomish.
Was just gonna post this. Glad I checked the comments first!
More like a F-101 Voodoo I think. Buid dates closer too.
It’s like a lot of McDonnell fighters. The configuration dates from the FH Phantom in 1945.
It’s just odd that it’s in a Douglas aircraft.. as the two companies wouldn’t merge until the mid 60s... but the configuration does minimize losses from long intakes and exhausts.
It’s cool how a lot of these X planes lead to development of not just one aircraft but the different design elements found their way into other aircraft as well.
@Charles Yuditsky I don't know about that. The UK, Canada and Australia all had aircraft ready for manufacturing at the time of the century aircraft and were all scrapped due to marketing and budgets of a collapsing empire.
Make no mistake, all were superior in the roles designed than what they actually got. The one outlier would be the F-111 in Australia which was the perfect plane for the perfect job.
Looks like one of those land speed record cars
It probably couldn't fly because it looks exactly like something I would have drawn in 3rd grade.
😂GJ, I had the same thought. Looks fast, tho.🏁
For sure!
Probably with a hot rod style flames paint job too. 😁
Ironically meant.
Ha, a kid's doodling during class.
This shows the amazing skill and daring of those test pilots! Today's test pilots still put themselves at risk, but the ones back then didn't have anywhere near the database we do today.
This was one of my favorites as a kid at the National Museum of the USAF. :-D
If memory serves, it was right across from the Goblin, under the B-36.
It looked cool as hell. It doesn't matter if it was crap
lol that is a nice pos. Salute to the engineers. Working on something that may have failed but it contributed to greater designs
Well, it kinda does. 🤔
Which is the exact opposite of good engineering
Like my 1986 Camaro
@@snoochpounder The exact opposite of good engineering is good marketing, so ... yeah.
As a Kerbal Space Program player, I watch these vids for plane design ideas. Both good and bad ones. Because sometimes it's fun to sacrifice a few brave kerbals in ways that none have been sacrificed before 😅
An important reminder of why we don’t hide failures - there are a lot of important lessons that were learned from this flop.
Lesson #1 - just because it looks fast doesn’t mean anything.
- You would be suprised how many things survive on looks alone. Otherwise Hollywood & Playboy would have never existed.
These failures were almost certainly "hidden", if by that you mean classified. The successes would have been, too. You don't want to hide these results from the engineers or policy makers, but that's about it.
Lesson #2 - have a suitable backup power plant option in case the first one does not work
It’s not easy to have a suitable backup.
This was the dawn of the jet age. Most American manufacturers were making copies of British engines like the Allison J33 and Pratt & Whitney J48.
Only Westinghouse had experience with American designed axial-flow turbojet engines in the immediate post-war years due to the unique combination of it being a steam turbine manufacturer (rather than a turbocharger manufacturer like GE) and that it was given the specifications of turbojet engines from British data (ie: mass airflow, fuel flow, pressure ratios, combustion temperatures, etc) but not the configuration.. leading them to develop an axial flow engine independently as a solution.
Axial flow allows the engine to have a low frontal area for low drag, allows easy scaling to larger engines and higher pressure ratios by adding compressor stages (a centrifugal engine can only have two due to ducting losses between stages).
But the problem is that unlike a centrifugal compressor or a turbocharger.. the pressure rise is linear and not exponential with RPM. This increases back pressure very quickly which results in compressor stall unless something is done about it.
A bleed valve is suitable for smaller engines like the J30 and J34.. but the pressures are too high once you get to larger engines that you’d never get the valve to stay closed.
Westinghouse couldn’t figure it out.. and it wasn’t just the X-3 that had that problem-it was a low production aircraft that needed an off-the-shelf engine-but most of the US Navy’s upcoming fighters and interceptors like the F4D Skyray, F7U Cutlass, and F3H Demon all of which were supposed to use larger Westinghouse engines and had to be cancelled or heavily modified for other engines when the J40 and J46 failed.
Pratt & Whitney would eventually design the J57 which used two spools to solve the compressor issue, and GE would design the J79 which used variable stators to unload the compressor as it accelerated.
The SR-71 would have suffered the same fate too with the J-58... the only off-the-shelf engine that had enough thrust to push it past Mach 3. It was modified heavily with bypass tubes to the afterburner not to make it a ram jet.. but to reduce the pressure in the compressor which was designed to produce high static thrust for a jet powered flying boat.
The wings are too short!!! There I figured it out with one glance... The designer needs his head examined or should have stuck to working on the set of flash Gordon.
To fix it would need Delta wing's & nose canards also flight computer to improve stability
Pilot Walker - nearly gets killed twice by the X3 during one flight. A month later - "Do you fancy having another go?" Walker "Yeh, why not?" That was bravery verging on foolhardiness but I guess he learnt a lot about regaining control from the first two incidents and figured that he had it covered.
He was killed a few years later when his F-104 collided with an XB-70 because he flew too close and was thrown by wing vortices of the larger aircraft. It was partially as a result of a rushed mission for a photo op that didn’t have the required pilot briefing that is essential for any formation flying.
@@Bartonovich52 I wonder how many other near misses he had as a test pilot. I guess if you are a test pilot, you can only have so many near misses before something bad happens.
I was a neighbor to Frank Everest in Virginia, just outside of 7 Corners. Outside of D.C. He took me squirrel hunting. Squirrel tastes terrible. He was a nice guy, kinda short. He gave me a book about himself called Fastest Man Alive. He was one of the reasons I joined the USAF.
And then your mom got a job!!!!
@@shawncrosby311 He had a nice wife and my mom WAS single. She worked for Nixon and Ford. She had some government guys over now and then. As I remember, they all looked like secret service guys.
@@DavidALovingMPF102 thats awesome! I bet frank had some crazy stories and its even cooler you can now research and watch the actual footage of said stories. I would be lying if i said i werent jealous
Thanks for the video and information. I had a model of this in the 60’s. It looked very futuristic. Several, or maybe many, early jets in the U.S. were underpowered. Also, if you notice some early jet designs have engine intakes flush with the fuselage. This seemed logical but actually DECREASED airflow into the engines due to boundary turbulence. Now all high speed jets have separation between fuselage and engine nacelles.
When I was a kid (around 12 or so. I'm now 45), I was HUGE into aircraft and would read tons of books on it. These videos take me RIGHT back to seeing "I remember that plane!" and the imfo behind it! Both my inner adult and inner child are squealing in joy!
What a great video!
I'm 66 and yes I can remember building all kinds of model airplanes including this... Incredible memories
Honestly this is the kind of content I go for.
Looks like the F-104 starfighter's dad
I see the xf-88 voodoo
It pretty much was.
i subbed you
and in my opinion it seems the plane was made by smashing and f4 and f104 together
...in fact it was a demonstrator/testbed for thin, low streching-ratio wings later used on the Starfighter...!
There are only 2 floors in the museum. The X3 is located in building 4.
I'm so glad people like you share such relevant facts
@@TheBigMclargehuge He's not wrong.
I'm an aircraft buff & thought I was in heaven when the narrator said 4 floors at the USAF museum. I'll have to check out the museum one of these days. I know I'll be impressed with the collection.
Right next to the XB-70, as shown in the last frame of the video.
@@clearcreek69 Each building is a progression through aviation and military flight history.
9:51 The plane was so fast, it went back in time by a decade!!!
That, or somebody needs an editor.
Yeah, he screws up years fairly often. It's the worst part of the channel. Still a good channel, though.
C'mon, man !
If my calculations are correct, when this thing hits 88mph...
He makes several mistakes early on. Also spends WAY too much time talking about the entirely unrelated SBD in a video about the X-3.
@@thecompulsivemusician8889 ahahahahahhaahaha..... the irony ahahaha
The only X plane to take off under it's own power.
Not true. Many X planes took off under their own power.
X-4, X-5, X-29, X-31.....
Even the X-1 took off under its own power once. I admit, it was a one off, but it did happen.
This must be the most streamlined aircraft ever flown. I had a plastic model of this plane, made by Revell.
The wings were a successful shape! Not swept back, but also featured on the Bell X1, and the Lockheed Star Fighter.
Amazing footage of an aircraft I always wanted to know more about. This channel is amazing
I remember when I first saw photos of the X-3 when I was in college; I assumed that it was from the late 60s or early 70s...not the late 40s/early 50's! Definitely a futuristic bird. Pity about the speed, but the design study still helped quite a bit.
I also thought it was from the 60s! Had that James Bond feel.
Small correction. The National Museum of the USAF only has 1 floor for aircraft. But there are 4 buildings and the X-3 is in Building 4 in the R&D Gallery.
- I didn't see it there (X-3). But I did see the B-70. And was heartbroke that it was sitting alone outside exposed to the elements.
@@mydogbrian4814 the Valkyrie was moved inside and cleaned up years ago. It looks fantastic now. There's almost nothing left outside now.
When I was a kid, I loved seeing the aircraft and missiles outside as we would approach the museum. I am glad everything is inside now, but I also missed that release of anticipation when I went this last October.
I wondered about that. My family visited the Museum (about forty years ago, now)--my oldest brother was stationed at WPAFB. I didn't remember any multi-story buildings with planes on display...
SBD actually stood for "Scout Bomber, Douglas". "Slow But Deadly" was the aircraft's well-deserved nickname.
Would be nice to see comparison to the JU - 87 Stuka.
Have been waiting for an episode on the Douglas X-3 Stiletto!
Does this guy copulate in this voice? “You like that, don’t you. You naughty, naughty girl. I could produce enough thrust to reach Mach 2.”
The Edsel of the aircraft industry.
The Stiletto looks more male than female.
The YF 23 should have won
Hardly. The Edsel delivered the promised performance.
Also, the Stiletto was pretty.
😂. Couldn’t of explained it any better, brilliant my friend.
@@skullduggery7917 wrong video bud lol
I had a Revell model kit of this plane when I was a kid. It had about a dozen pieces. Two fuselage halves, two wings, two stabilizers, a rudder and the two windscreen pieces. It was not a challenging project but it looked fast
This stiletto could not reach up with high heels.
I remember building a model of this back in 1962 and hearing 'The Stripper' on the radio. Ah, memories...
I had that same model. Don’t remember the Stripper though.
I built mine in 1981.👍
The X-3 was the very first model kit I built (a few years later, maybe 1971-ish).
What a beautiful airplane, imagine seeing piston engine planes and some of the period fighter jets then seeing this. It still looks futuristic as hell, even they way they wrote x3 on it doesn't look of the era.
In the list of Douglas aircraft, I would have put the DC3,/C47/Dakota above and beyond all the others, great that they were. DC3's are still flying today, still doing the work they were meant to be used for.
It's 4-engined successor the DC4 was pretty successful as well and a number are still flying. The SBD (or Dauntless) was a dive-bomber and wasn't intended to tangle with Zeros, though its agility enabled it to evade the Japanese fighters in many cases.
I saw a soviet copy of the DC-3 fly live a couple times in Hungary. People can buy a ticket for a sightseeing flight on one.
When I was a kid I built a model of this plane. I thought it was the coolest looking plane ever.
me too
Me too!
It was a super-popular model airplane to build in the 1970s; so you're not alone.
me too. I also built the X 15. The kit of the X3 was completely white, whereas the X 15 was completely black. I loved both equally.Bye Hans.
Been waiting for this video. What a bizarre plane.
What a sad aircraft.
This spawned the f104 starfighter "AKA" the widowmaker.
Well, the Luftwaffe got bribed by Lockheed and took a high speed-high altitude supersonic interceptor, loaded it with a ton of bombs and used it as a low level bomber. Of course that wasn't going to end well...
It really was a great aircraft. The Germans just gave it the opposed job it should have been doing.
@@sevi117 there was a lot of bribery and offering gifts of vacations, nights with women etc back then. We will never find out about most of it
Spain didn’t lose a single one.
And you can’t tell me the Luftwaffe or RCAF were doing things like this with their Starfighters.
ua-cam.com/video/jyBDEG9dg-Q/v-deo.html
It was the pilots.
@@Bartonovich52 as I said, Germany planned to use it as a low level fihhter-bomber (the most opposite role that design would have). So they trained for that. Also the German variant didn't only have the extra weight of bombs, but also it had more fuel (more weight) and extra equipment for its role (even more distractions for the pilots).
Erich Hartmann, the world highest fighter ace rejoined the German air force (he became the commander of the first German all jet fighter wing) on 1956. He opposed to the introduction of the Starfighter on that role and opposed it's adoption by the air force saying that it was an unsafe and flawed aircraft (obviously he was talking about the low level version. Tell him that they would use at high altitude without bombs as it was designed for and he would have said otherwise).
The wings are too short!!! There I figured it out with one glance... The designer needs his head examined or should have stuck to working on the set of flash Gordon.
To fix it would need Delta wing's & nose canards also flight computer to improve stability
- The X-3 has always been my favorite jet plane, I even built a model of it as a kid.
- It always looked like a "kick-ass" mach-3.3 capable aircraft just rolling out of the hanger & parked on the tarmac (apron).
- If it would have been fitted with GE-79 engins 2 years later. It would have matched its looks with its performance. > Just like its ofsprings, the F-104 Starfighter eventually did....
Yeah but the starfighter was barely fit for combat itself.
@@somewhatsomething4882 - Not so. It did superbly what it was specifically designed to do by the same Kelly Johnson that gave us the the SR-71
- Then suddenly the Air Force decited they wanted it as a multi role craft.
- Ever try to turn a Formula racing car into a utility van?
It doesn't seem to follow the area rule, which helps explain why it performed poorly
"F4 Phantom II"
Area Rule airframe isn't strictly required.
The X3 primary failing is it's anemic engines.
Area ruling is primarily to address the cross sectional area of the wing. The X-3’s wing is so thin and small as to not need much compensation.
@@timgarrett203 That does make a lot of sense, thanks very much.
Re: The Title of the Video
STILETTO
not
Stilleto.
A bit disappointing from an otherwise pretty consistent historical/educational channel.
Oh good you just saved me a point on my next aviation history exam. You're a hero.
@@TheBigMclargehuge GOOD LUCK
@Galileo7of9 - I do not believe so. It true, please provide at least 3 examples errors.
@J B - Consistently error prone means more than a single error. You mean no mushroom cloud on the moon? In any case, with the naked eye, only the flash would have ben visible.
It is irresponsible to say that the embargo forced the Japanese into war. The Japanese celebrated a warrior culture, and chose war.
The project was a bit _too_ ambitious because it encountered a really nasty instability issue called _inertia coupling_ . But it did give a lot of insight into that issue, and later supersonic aircraft had larger tail surfaces and wings to improve high speed stability.
It may not have flown very well, but you gotta admit it's one badass looking aircraft.
The engine exhaust reminds me of the f4 phantom..and the European jaguar
True!!
Not the american Jaguar?
@@ShortArmOfGod
Nope. Nothing to to with the USA. It was a totally Anglo-French plane.
Built a Revell model of this when I was a kid. Loved the sleek look.
I assume at time 9:53 you meant December of 1953 not December of 1943.
The music in this video is just as amazing as the information. How about music descriptions in the vids?
This
Clearly, no concept of the "Area Rule" in this design. Rather like the first F-102. Underpowered engines, for sure, but also significant fuselage drag that they weren't aware of. This is how you learn lessons; you make mistakes.
Yes converse of area rule very draggy above M1.
The X-1 and F-100 weren’t area ruled and went supersonic.
@@Bartonovich52 True. It's not absolutely required. The X-1 didn't even have swept wings. They didn't know what they didn't know. I flew the T-38 and it had the most lovely "waist" and rather small engines and could go supersonic - barely. I also flew the F-111 which wasn't noticeably area ruled and could exceed mach 2 if provoked. I suspect the X-3 was just another step along the road to really understanding supersonic aerodynamics. Under powered and under designed.
@@claycook5773 Yes, flew F111Cs in 70s. One memorable day during post D test, hit M2.5 at 45,000 ft in level flight, temp was 5C below standard. Had to pull nose up to slow down. Very clean, light and big wings. Not long after VNE reduced to M1.8 to save engines - sad.
@@jimgraham6722 C's! Aussie, I assume? Yes, big wings indeed. I flew the F-111F in England in the 80's. I believe some of them went down under after the USAF got rid of them. Our FB-111'a had the big wings. Then SAC got rid of them, and they became F-111G's and I think you got some of them too. I never reached mach 1, but the "pirate" radio stations anchored in the channel in the 80's had huge radio masts, so they were great radar targets. We "boomed" them regularly. Great bird. It remains a privilege to have flown them. Cheers.
This is the quality content I come here for.
This channel is awesome!
There are several informational flaws here.
1. It was one of the first airframes to extensively use TITANIUM in its design
2. It was developed and flown from 1952 until 1956, not the 30/40s, even if the requests came in around the 1940s.
3. Westinghouse engines were notoriously underpowered, but given they were the main contracts (and the only ones available), there was little choice in the matter. P&W and GE didn't come into the jet age picture for a while.
4th hanger not 4th floor. The USAF Museum only has one floor.
There is a second floor with some offices and a few displays, as well as the museum restaurant. But I still caught what he said. The 4th hanger holds the presidential planes, research and developement aircraft, as well as the shuttle mockup
HangAr if we're being picky. But I know what you mean and thank you for the info.
@@charlesrice7701 Don't forget the (X)B-70. Kinda hard to miss that big bird.
@@charlesrice7701 and there’s a balcony where you can look over the Peacemaker.
Can’t wait to visit it along with Arlington to pay my respects, Washington to see the W.H. The Capitol and to just sit in a diner drinking coffee and chatting with average Americans about life there.
I’m a Brit btw
This guy could make his Ma making shortbread cookies sound like a spy novel: "Without hesitation, she folded the egg whites... into the sugar mix!"
The description of the SBD is incorrect. SBD was for Scout Bomber Douglas. It was not a fighter and was not "fighting off Zeroes" but rather was a dive bomber. It was especially important in the Battle of Midway in the sinking of Japanese aircraft carriers. Wildcats, Hellcats, and Corsairs fought the Zeroes in air to air combat.
Sad that flight performance wasn't as good as it's design.
The design = 💩
Power plant.
The wings are too short!!! There I figured it out with one glance... The designer needs his head examined or should have stuck to working on the set of flash Gordon.
To fix it would need Delta wing's & nose canards also flight computer to improve stability
I’m going to the museum that she is currently in, in a few weeks!
That museum is the only thing I miss about living in Ohio.
As a kid in the 60s I actually got to see the x3 in a museum and it's stuck with me forever
One of the most striking looking aircraft ever made.
Your videos are just amazing man keep it up
you surprised me. Most people never knew the X-3 was actually the testbed for Lockheed to build the F-104 . Yeah, It was underpowered. The engine tunnels in the X-3 were only 27 inches wide. You simply couldnt put more power in that space at that time.. It also had the same adverse yaw problem the F-104 had. In the F-104 it was a deadly problem, but in the x-3 it was mostly a major annoyance. Youll notice also, the X-3 has a flat bottom. That was intentional. What wasnt intentional was the amount of lift it provided, and the X-3 quietly lead the way into the study of lifting and falling bodies like the XB-24.. Marvelous little plane.
There is no "4th Floor" of the USAF Museum in Dayton. Perhaps Hangar 4
It sits on the hanger floor, under the wing of the XB-70. Nice location.
@@dbfry1449 Can confirm. Saw it a few days ago. Awesome museum.
Under the wing of the Valkyrie is a bit vague though. That describes the east end of Dayton.
The Valkyrie is mindblowingly huge. Makes the SR-71 next to it look small.
@@caferace8418 Good to hear, thank you sir. That is a very large plane. For now I can enjoy it through the Google Street View walking tour. Hope to get there soon.
I go to the Air Force museum about once a month as I live only 20 minutes from it. This is one of my favorite planes there.
You have a very strange, almost creepy narrative style which I think adds a lot to these documentaries. I went to the AF Museum this last October and the aircraft is beautiful when you see it in person. It's a shame it had such poor performance. In the picture you used to show the X-3 inside the museum, I am pretty sure that was the XB-70 in the background.
I wonder what it could do with today's jet engines and avionics...
I built a model of this jet back in the 1970's and loved it. Surprisingly, some new experimental supersonic aircraft look similar to the X-3.
I'm afraid to even LOOK at that design for fear I'll knock it into an uncontrollable spin.
The wings are too short!!! There I figured it out with one glance... The designer needs his head examined or should have stuck to working on the set of flash Gordon.
To fix it would need Delta wing's & nose canards also flight computer to improve stability
Big problem was power. If the X-3 had the J79 it could've made mach 2 easily.
The J79 came 2 1/2 years too late for that though it's use in the F-104 shows your basically right.
It just shows how fast aircraft developed from 1945-1960 before costs skyrocketed leading to the big slow down from the mid 1980's till today.
@@Ushio01 yes, the J79 could have been a tremendous help to push the X-3 easily to mach but it would never overcome it's extremely dangerous instability issues. All the the test pilots said that it was the most difficult airplane to fly scaring them shitless...
@@Ushio01 How true. My dad was an F-104 pilot in the 60's. When asked what could make the "Zipper" better, his reply was 5,000 lbs more thrust.
@@billgund4532 also known as the widow maker when the German airforce flew it.
The F104, MIG21 and English Electric Lightning are similar in that it was all about speed to climb and catch the enemy.
All 3 are icons of early Cold War aviation
@@nigeh5326 Mission requirements & technology were rapidly changing at a rapid pace. Had the F-104 been able to employ fly by wire technology, well it would have really been a force of nature.
Sadly, dad passed away recently. But I remember him telling me he never felt more alive than when flying the '104. And this coming from a guy calling the F-86 his blue skies mistress.
For those of us not ODing on caffeine, don’t forget you need to play this guy at 0.75x speed.
at 9:54 you mention 26 flights in 1943, I think you meant 1953
Idc what you say, it looks great
But it flies like a Twinkie, without the fun cream filling.
"The dagger that could barely fly"
*Gaijin plsssss*
The wings are too short!!! There I figured it out with one glance... The designer needs his head examined or should have stuck to working on the set of flash Gordon.
To fix it would need Delta wing's & nose canards also flight computer to improve stability
@@punkvoid9957 nobody at the time really knew the aerodynamics of supersonic flight back then. The X1's wings where about the same shape, and the F104's are not that much larger. Computerized Flight Control systems where still 2 decades and change off, too, though had they existed at the time, it would have certainly made it less of a chore to wrestle around the sky.
Love the music in this episode.
*You really know how to go off topic and drag a video out to get that sweet sweet monetization I respect that*
I personally prefer the "SBD-3 Dauntless"
No daunt in that plane, kind of cool, although it is slow but deadly too
Cool videos too, the stilleto looks like a cartoon drawing
He did a video on the SBD and apparently he got it in his head that it's official military designation was Slow, But Deadly. I'm sure some pilots genuinely referred to the SBD by that moniker but it was absolutely not a universal view. Maybe he thought that SBD was shorthand for that rather than Scout-Bomber Douglas?
Did you catch how he mentioned the SBD in the following context;
"From 1941 until the beginning of 1943 the Douglas SBD would be the vanguard of the US air corps fighting off the Japanese Zeros in Midway, Guadalcanal, Tarawa and the Solomon Islands Campaign."
Last I checked the USAAC was reformed as the USAAF in June of 1941 which was well before the US entered the war. Even still less than a sixth of them were appropriated for USAAF service under the designation A-24 Banshee. Finally a grand total of 138 air-to-air victories were credited to the type throughout the entirety of the war; Hardly what I'd consider a vanguard for fighting off the swarms of A6Ms in those campaigns? lol
If these were seldom and occasional gaffes I think I could still manage to continue to enjoy the channel without coming off sounding like a troll. However as an avid military aviation history enthusiast it becomes very difficult. In fact, I think I'll be unsubscribing after this one. His facts about the X-3 were relatively good, save for mentioning a test flight of it occurring in 1943 rather than 1953, but it's these continued "subtle" inaccuracies that just grate on my nerves...
Helldiver had a cooler name tho
@@athelwulfgalland Exactly
This and the sr-71 really give one pause. About where aviation has gone since. 🤔
Cheaper, more practical designs. I also like the sr-71, but who knows, maybe it will be practical at some point in time
SR-72 is in development by lockheed. Wont look anything like the Sr-71 however. Supposedly closer to the F22 of all things.
Into the Black.
Look into the XQ-58A Valkyrie
As a prototype, the X-3 was a success, and informed the many designs which followed. Its failings were learned from and turned into subsequent successes. It proved also that just because it looks like it might go faster, it doesn't always. Rather like the Spitfire's wing: the elegant elliptical curve looked like it carved the air, but later iterations had their wings clipped - the result was ugly but they flew further and faster.
Narrator cracks a beer at 4:35
Im kinda digging the way it looks...Though you could probably expect that from me considering my all-time favorite Fighter Jet is the F-104 lol.
Hey Dark Skies, love your channel. There's something about the pitch of your voice and style of narration that makes your videos absolutely captivating. Thanks for such interesting videos!
I always thought this plane looked really cool. It reminds me of the first original Planet of the apes movie. The space ship that Charlton Heston crashed into the lake looked very similar.
You guys really need to do some post editing on these things. 9:54 They were not test-flying this for several months in 1943.
This type of full scale swinging for the stands prototyping is as fascinating as it is extinct! NOTHING that uncertain will ever be physically tested with a pilot ever again, as any design will be simulated and refined and abandoned if necessary long before it could get to this point. It's kind of a shame, in a way.
I mean.... just LOOK at that beautiful, artful piece of engineering!
11:30~ish and most of the film. The music is really Devo. Adds to the ambience.
A missile with a cockpit
Exactly!
truest words were never spoken
@James W that's a perfect description!
Could you please leave a reference to the music. The music you use in your episodes is absolutely superb, and I want it on my playlist.
Something about the designs of the 1950s is the engine configuration, with the tail partially in the exhaust blast. Like an F-4 Phantom...
The video feels like an Ace Combat info before a mission :)
The USAF museum has hangers, no floors other than the ground. its in the space and experimental hanger. All the way in the back. Its free to get in so check it out.
I remember building a model of the X-3 in the early '70s. Very memorable design.
I know you won’t see this but ..... living in Ohio and seeing this video .... touching that plane in person .... amazing
They made planes so difficult to land in the cold war era
Until we built the F-14/Tornado/Su-24
After that, inherently instantly CADs piloted by FBW became the name of the game and are the ultimate development.
Yes because engine technology was ahead of other areas. More recently the introduction of more advanced tech has balanced things back up. Not saying landing a modern aircraft is east but now you have backup from tech that takes some of the human factor out so pilots aren’t so overloaded.
I suppose most battle scenarios at he time didn’t expect there would be a place to land.
@@BillLaBrie certainly not a tarmac runway, that’s why we Brits built the Harrier in part and in conjunction with the French we built the Jaguar with an undercarriage that could handle an uneven grass surface
@@MostlyPennyCat the F-14 on the boat was called the tukey
Caught by surprise, good one. You're too funny 🤣🤦
Dark docs/dark skies video request ... i have been researching the nuclear warhead storage and slmb prep and storage at kings bay submarine naval base and Bangor submarine naval base. You can see a lot of the facilities from google earth. I would like to see a video on the naval bases particularly the underground warhead-storage “dog houses” that are visible on google earth. I would also like to see a video on us airforce bases , infrastructure , and the storage and nuke facilities. I would like to see a video on the visible underground bunkers and what you know about each building.
looks like they used the design of the body for the F-101 Voodoo and F-4 Phantom
Thanks, you gave me all the info I needed in the intro.
I was thinking the same thing...
Cool documentary cool narration love the uploads thank u
Please tell me the background music soundtrack
If you want to see it at the USAF Museum, it is not on the 4th floor, there is no 4th floor. Its in Hangar #4 with a number of other really cool X-planes.
The only reason the Stiletto failed was because 1952 turbojet technology wasn't as mature as airframe design was - they simply couldn't find two engines small enough to fit on such a radically skinny fuselage that also could produce supersonic speed. This concept didn't achieve fruition until six years later with the F-104, which used the same dart fuselage/straight stub wings/dual inlet design as the Stiletto but a much bigger single GE J79 engine. The J79 was no peach in terms of reliability, but it was extremely powerful, and thus the "missile with a man in it" concept was finally a success.
The airframe was not all aluminum. The Stiletto pioneered the use of titanium and it was prevalent throughout the airframe.
Looks like a plane you'd build in ksp out of boredom
I came here looking for a KSP comment. My day is now better for finding it!
:)