At 10:40 PM 7/24/04 -0400, "John Burk" wrote:
>Was reading about lifting bodies on the internet - It said in 1962 NASA did
>unpowered tests with the M2-F1 at Edwards towed behind a "hopped-up" Pontiac
>convertible at 120 mph - Any body know more about this ?
Pictures and all details on the two links at the end of this message
The car was a 1963 Pontiac Catalina convertible, fitted with a 421-cubic-inch
tripower engine like those being run at the Daytona 500 auto race. The vehicle
also had a four-speed transmission and a heavy-duty suspension and cooling
system. A roll bar was also added and the passenger seat turned around so an
observer could watch the M2-F1 while it was being towed. The rear seat was
removed and a second, side-facing seat installed. The lifting-body team used
the Pontiac for all the ground-tow flights over the next three years.
Unlike the later lifting bodies, the M2-F1 was unpowered and was initially
towed until it was airborne by a souped-up Pontiac convertible. This vehicle
needed to be able to tow the M2-F1 on the Rogers Dry Lakebed adjacent to NASA's
Flight Research Center (FRC) at a minimum speed of 100 miles per hour. To do
that, it had to handle the 400-pound pull of the M2-F1. Walter "Whitey"
Whiteside, who was a retired Air Force maintenance officer working in the FRC's
Flight Operations Division, was a dirt-bike rider and hot-rodder. Together with
Boyden "Bud" Bearce in the Procurement and Supply Branch of the FRC, Whitey
acquired a Pontiac Catalina convertible with the largest engine available.
He took the car to Bill Straup's renowned hot-rod shop near Long Beach for
modification. With a special gearbox and racing slicks, the Pontiac could tow
the 1,000-pound M2-F1 110 miles per hour in 30 seconds. It proved adequate for
the roughly 400 car tows that got the M2-F1 airborne to prove it could fly
safely and to train pilots before they were towed behind a C-47 aircraft and
released.
http://www.dfrc.nasa.gov/Gallery/Photo/M2-F1/HTML/ED96-43663-1.html
http://www.dfrc.nasa.gov/Gallery/Photo/M2-F1/HTML/EC92-04152.html
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