Naval aircraft at Edwards over the years were not plentiful, but with Douglas Aircraft making its home here in Southern California, and being involved with many Navy programs, the lake beds at Edwards were a good fit for those projects and flight operations.
The development of the Skylancer F5D-1’s is a story on its own, but what I want to share here is the story of the F5D-1s which were a bit inferior to their proposed brother F5D-5, which would have been a formidable aircraft.
The two aircraft I want to single out are two airframes numbered NASA 212 and NASA 213 that were transferred to Edwards Air Force Base for use as test aircraft in the Dyna-Soar project. Of the two aircraft, only 213 became a part of the program.
The story of the X-20 spacecraft will be looked at in an upcoming article, but for now I want to focus on our two Lancers at Edwards during the late 1950’s and after retirement.
When the program started in 1961 Neil Armstrong was the NASA test pilot involved with the program and NASA 213 would carry the workload. First, he used 213 to develop an escape procedure for the X-20.
The program required a climb to 7,000 feet, which was the estimated escape height an X-20 would reach after firing its small escape rocket. The aircraft at this point would have the stick eased back and the aircraft would come out of the climb on its back and would be rolled up right and enter a low lift to drag ratio approach to landing on a simulated runway modeled after Cape Canaveral.
The program lasted till December 1963 when the Dyna-Soar program was canceled but NASA 213 would carry on with a new program flying chase for the lifting body program that was in full swing at the time. In 1965 NASA 213 had its number changed to 802 and was used up to its retirement in 1970.
Being that it was flown by some pretty notable pilots like Bill Dana and Milt Thompson, the call came to have the airframe saved and donated. Out of the three pilots involved in the Dyna-Soar program, Thompson was tasked with flying the Lancer back to Ohio where it would become the center piece for the future Armstrong Air and Space Museum in Wapakoneta, Ohio.
F5D-1 NASA 213 had more of a work horse life ahead of it as it became a heavily modified airframe that would test new ideas and perform research on flight characteristics of improving aircraft technologies. One of those programs was the study of the Ogee wing to better understand the leading-edge vortex phenomena.
The Ogee wing configuration continued of for the life of the Lancer and performed in many other flight test missions for NASA including the proposed supersonic transport landing test that were a perfect fit for 213 as the modified wing was a dead ringer for the wing design of the SST. NASA 213 would also be redesignated ending up being renumbered NASA 708.
In a familiar story, the Douglas F5D-1 in 1971 kind of mirrored another Douglas project here in the Antelope Valley as NASA reached out to Burton Wadsworth, president of Victorville Valley College, and had the aircraft donated to the instructional airframe classes where it went on for many years as a teaching aid for future aerospace workers and engineers.
The last part of this story I want to share today would be frowned upon but back in the late 1950’s and early 1960’s it was the kind of thing that today sure is entertaining. It speaks to the swagger of pilots back in the day of flight test and how many days came to an end with a just some fumes left in the tank!
Flight test near China Lake had moments when a bit of rivalry would take place and retired Navy Capt. Robert Dreesen assigned to the flight test program at NASA recalled that when they would finish up research flights they would wonder over to tactical areas where they would troll the F-8 Crusaders for a bit of headbutting. The crusader pilots thought that jets were actually the earlier F4D-1 and would be easy meat, but the faster and more maneuverable F5D-1 would make quick work of the Crusader pilots and send them home with their pride a bit tarnished!
Only two of these aircraft designs exist today and one from NASA stands at the entrance to the Armstrong Air and Space museum in Ohio and the other airframe went from Victorville to the Evergreen Aircraft Museum in Oregon. Two Skylancers that danced in our skies many years ago and now you know a few things about a couple planes that were pretty special to the NASA flight test programs!
Until then, Bob out and be safe!
