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Tue, Mar 25, 2003

That Last X-1 Flight...

Last week, we unleashed a deluge of answers to our question: When was the last X-1 flight, and where -- and who flew it?

Although a lot of you (hundreds, actually) got it right, the first correct and complete answer came from longtime ANN Reader Nelson Tirado:

"The last flight of a Bell X-1 occurred on the 7th of November, 1958, when Jack McKay flew the X-1E over the Mojave Desert at the NASA High-Speed Flight Station (HSFS), now known as the Dryden Flight Research Center (DFRC). The X-1E is now on display in front of Building 4800 at DFRC."

Oh -- and its first flight was December 12, 1955. The super-thin wing (roughly half as thick as the original X-1's, at under 3½ inches), allowed much-higher speeds than the predecessor craft.

One other thing: earlier that year (January 23), one Neil A. Armstrong retired another example...

FMI: www.dfrc.nasa.gov

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