15 of 16 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
Best X-15 footage around, January 5, 2007
This review is from: X-15: The Edge of Space (DVD)
Another great offering from the folks at Spacecraft films. This one suffers a little because it gets a bit redundant on disc two. Basically it's a bunch of footage of launches and landings (there was little else to film since nothing could keep up with the X-15). Spacecraft films should consider doing a DVD set on the lifting bodies. There were 6 different configurations and great footage that hasn't been seen (plus one of the most famous crashes ever). Plus, there is more complete footage of the flights. It would be a little more interesting with the different vehicles and could avoid the redundency of seeing the same configuration (the X-15) over and over. In any event, Spacecraft films is to be commended for their efforts. This is another fine offering and hopefully this company will not only continue with the excellent spacecraft series but will also continue to release these experimental research flight sets also.
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2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Finally after several years I found this exceptional DVD set, April 11, 2008
This review is from: X-15: The Edge of Space (DVD)
After several years looking for information from the most spectacular aircraft in history,I did found this DVD set. As a retired A&P Maintenance Controller I still don't have enough time to see all the details. But with this DVD, it gave me the opportunity to find all the information I could think off. As a modeller you can't have enough information to make a good replica. This is fantastic.
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5.0 out of 5 stars
X-15: The Edge of Space - A five star DVD for space weenies, April 6, 2009
This review is from: X-15: The Edge of Space (DVD)
X-15: The Edge of Space was a five star DVD as far as this reviewer is concerned. This highly successful X-plane was flight tested between 1958 and 1968 and excerpts from all of this work are included. This film contains a great deal of detailed coverage of a large number of X-15 flights which have probably not been available to the public until it was released. It contains three DVD's and will likely start to repeat itself unless you are a genuine fan of space and aviation. However, if you consider yourself a space "historian" with a growing space collection, this DVD box set is a must see!
Included are several wonderful X-15 formal presentations, North American Aviation, U.S. Air Force and NASA documentaries and speeches. The DVD set also includes many clips of engineering wind tunnel work, wonderful stainless steel fractional scale models of the X-15, photography of shock wave patterns developed in hypersonic flows around the aeroform of these models, interviews given by old X-15 test pilots, technicians and engineers, and probably every scrap of footage that Spacecraft Films could salvage from this wonderful project. Informative narration was also provided by David Mohr, a propulsion engineer working on the Shuttle Program.
Granted, even the original box set was a bit pricey from Spacecraft Films due to the cost of remastering and color correcting the old footage (which includes 16 and 35 mm film, some of which has been restored to "good as new" by SF). Note that this box set includes over ten hours of historic footage.
One sequence I particularly enjoyed shows the efforts to upgrade the X-15 to Mach 8 capability by outfitting its Inconel-X steel skin with a "white" ablative coating, two external tanks, and plans to incorporate a ram jet in place of the lower vertical stabilizer. The advanced X-15 program was cancelled, however, before the plane could achieve this new world record. Records the X-15 did accomplish included a 67 mile (~354,000 foot) altitude record and a Mach 6.7 speed record.
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