Sorry, we're closed to install The Collins Story: on the 50th Anniversary of the Moon Landing. If you are interested in this exhibition and the history stories posted here, please show your support with a donation to the Marion Heritage Center & Museum. We open back-up on Sat., July 13. Save the date and join us! ... See MoreSee Less

1 day ago  ·  

Man's first venture into near space came aboard the X-15, the fastest and most famous aircraft in the U. S. X-plane program, and Collins Radio Co. supplied the communication and navigation equipment. Their gear included a modified ARC-52 UHF transceiver, a backup receiver and modified DF-301 Automatic Direction Finder (ADF) for the pilots to find their way home, plus control boxes and antennas. The radios were housed in pressurized cases to cope with the vacuum of space and cooled by the same liquid nitrogen cooling system that kept the rest of the craft safe from the heat of re-entry. Communication of voice and data from the nearly 750 sensors monitoring the pilot and aircraft was essential and so the Collins engineers designed a "guard" receiver to monitor communications and switch between antennas mounted on the top and bottom of the fuselage so that regardless of any unexpected maneuvers of the plane, communication was ensured.

The X-15 may look like an airplane, but the craft was more of a piloted missile, 50 feet long with a wing span of only 22 ft. A B-52 replaced the first stage of the rocket, carrying the craft to an altitude of 40,000 ft. and a speed of 500 mph before releasing it for rocket ignition, then it achieved speeds of over 4,000 mph. With no atmosphere to provide aerodynamic control, the pilot controlled pitch, yaw and roll with small hydrogen peroxide steam-jets mounted on the nose and wings.

The X-15 program was initiated in 1952 when the National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics (NACA), the predecessor of NASA, began studies on the problems expected in manned space flight. North American Aviation won the design competition and construction began on three space craft in 1957. Collins started work in August and delivered the first system 12 months later. The vehicle and its radios weren't the only things being tested; the ability of humans to survive Mach 5 acceleration, weightlessness, and to perform the required spacecraft control functions for re-entry and landing was unknown. Life-support systems had to be developed as well as heat-resistant coatings for the plane and heat-dissipation systems for the equipment. A tracking corridor stretching nearly 500 miles was developed to monitor the flights, foreshadowing the global network that Collins Radio later developed for the Project Mercury. Flight tests began in March, 1959. The plane first reached outer space (defined as starting at 50 miles altitude) on Flight 62 in July, 1962.

In all, 199 flights were made before the X-15 program ended in Oct. 1968. The Collins system performed flawlessly throughout. Altogether 12 test pilots flew the X-15, including Scott Crossfield, who made the first unpowered and powered flights; Neil Armstrong, the first man on the moon, who made 7 flights, and; Joe Engle, who later commanded the space shuttle, 16 flights. Maj. Michael J. Adams was the only casualty. He died on Flight 191 when his plane broke up at 60,000 ft. during re-entry.

USAF and NACA officials briefly made plans in 1958 to send the X-15 into space atop an SM-64 Navaho missile but cancelled the project after NASA adopted the Mercury capsule plans, but the knowledge and experience gained on the program were major steps toward our ultimate space success.

Learn more about the X-15 program and other early Collins space ventures in the upcoming exhibit: The Collins Story: On the 50th Anniversary of the Moon Landing, coming to the Marion Heritage Center in July, in collaboration with the Arthur A. Collins Legacy Association. ... See MoreSee Less

4 days ago  ·  

A few words about two more of the amazing research scientists Arthur Collins drew to Collins Radio after WWII. Pictured below holding the high-power Resnatron microwave tube are Dr. John W. Clark (L) and Dr. Walter H. Kohl (R) who headed the Collins Vacuum Tube Laboratory. Clark came to Collins in 1946. He left c.a. 1953 to direct the Nuclear Electronics Lab at the Hughes Aircraft Corp. where he developed a "kitchen-table" linear accelerator useful for small labs, and invented the "Mobot," a remote controlled MObile roBOT with televison camera-eyes designed to operate in conditions too dangerous for humans (e.g. inside nuclear reactors). Clark predicted the mobot would be the first "man" on the moon. The photos show his early Mark I Mobot and his advanced underwater model, useful for repairing Gulf oil wells, submarine rescues and underwater farming. Clark joined the lab at the Battelle Memorial Institute in 1963 and later became an ocean engineering-consultant in San Diego where he worked on plans for Jules Verne-like undersea laboratories.

Walter Heinrich Kohl immigrated to Canada from Germany in 1930 and came to the US in 1944. The engineer-physicist's pioneering work in electron optics is credited with leading to the invention of the electron microscope. Kohl wrote the textbook on vacuum tube materials and construction. He left Collins in 1952 to go to Stanford University and later worked for Sylvania in their microwave lab.

Note: The jet-powered VTOL Aerodyne shown in Saturday's post was just a "test bed" and didn't fly but Lippisch regularly flew an electric model. See photo below; also available, a video of the flying vehicle at www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q-qe5OQaOks ... See MoreSee Less

1 week ago  ·