April 11, 2023 Shower Not Included

The Liberty Gazette

April 11, 2023

Ely Air Lines

By Mike Ely and Linda Street-Ely

In the 1950’s, NASA was looking for a better vehicle to return astronauts from space. Space capsules aren’t real maneuverable, and they’re subject to high re-entry forces due to rapid deceleration. That’s why they relied on parachutes to gently bring the capsules down. Conventional winged aircraft isn’t an option for re-entering the earth’s atmosphere because the wings would burn up during re-entry due to friction. So, in 1957 Dr. Alfred J. Eggers, Jr., designed a wingless aircraft he called a “lifting body.” Lift was obtained from the shape of the body rather than wings. The nosecone shape enabled it to glide back to earth rather than plummet. Its slower deceleration and ability to turn allowed for more landing choices, too.

But nay-sayers said it wouldn’t work without deployable wings and engines. The idea was shelved until engineer R. Dale Reed got permission to make a model to test the theory. NASA called it the M2-F1. It was a low-budget project with a big influence on space travel. To quote Lance Geiger, better known as “The History Guy,” it was “a time when pure engineering enthusiasm could make a bathtub fly.” 

The Director of the NASA Flight Research facility, Paul Bikle, was a man of common sense (and a world record-setting glider pilot). He knew that if they sought NASA funding and involved aircraft manufacturers, there would be so much bureaucracy that it would take too long, cost too much, and have a higher chance of failure than if he kept the project in-house and invited interested engineers and scientists to work on it voluntarily. Sure enough, they built it in just four months. Now they’d need a ground vehicle to tow it at speed to get it airborne. Like running and flying a kite.

After some time in the wind tunnel, and fitted with an ejection seat, the aircraft dubbed by the LA Times as Reed’s “flying bathtub” began test flights. They bought a Pontiac Catalina convertible and had it souped up to make 110 mph in 30 seconds while towing the 1,000-pound M2-F1 experiment piloted by Milt Thompson on the Muroc dry lakebed.

Bikle had put his career on the line with this horizontal landing space vehicle. After almost 80 test flights over three years, 1963-1966, the novel idea that opened the doors to further innovation was finally retired, a success. The Lifting Body program which Dale Reed had championed had proved to be a good bet for Bikle, as the knowledge gained led to the building of NASA’s space shuttles. 

R. Dale Reed wrote a book about his experience in 1997, “Wingless Flight: The Lifting Body Story.” You can see the M2-F1 at the Air Force Flight Testing Museum at Edwards Air Force Base in California.

In pop culture history, Steve Austin, the Six Million Dollar Man, was “rebuilt” after a crash of the M2-F2, the successor to the M2-F1. While that aircraft really did crash, the pilot, Bruce Peterson, fully recovered and continued to fly for NASA.

ElyAirLines.blogspot.com