posted 01-29-2016 02:06 PM               

Space cover collector Barbara Baker experimented and perfected how she would obtain X-15 test pilot signatures. In her early correspondence, she would ask test pilots to fly her covers, sign them, and return them to her. And, amazingly, it worked! The above scan is Barbara Baker's flown X-15 cover of March 22, 1967, signed by test pilot Mike Adams, and hand cancelled at Edwards Air Force Base, California, where Adam's X-15 flight was made. The cover is one of only two flown Adam's X-15 covers for this date.

The manila card included in the X-15 flown cover was also signed by X-15 test pilot Adams. He writes on the card, "This cover was aboard the X-15 #1 rocket plane during the flight of March 22, 1967. I was unable to mail it the same day," signed Mike Adams, Maj. USAF

On November 11, 1966, X-15 test pilot Pete Knight carries 2 covers with him in X-15 #2, over Edwards Air Force Base, California, and setting a new X-15 speed record of Mach 6.17, or 4,696 miles per hour.

Space Cover #353: Flown X-15 Covers of Barbara Baker

I did not know Barbara Baker but continue to be amazed at how this avid space cover collector made her own space covers and corresponded with cutting edge X-15 test pilots in the 1959 to 1967 time frame for the X-15 hypersonic rocket plane test program.

Barbara was confined to a wheelchair but that did not present a problem to her space cover collecting efforts. She would write to test pilots and ask them to fly the two or three covers she would send to them. She also would ask them to sign the covers and return them back to her.

Barbara made her own X-15 space covers using plain envelopes. In her correspondence, she says, "In trying to make the covers as attractive as possible, I made up several types of rocket labels in various shapes: diamond, triangular, hexagon, rhomboid, etc. I used a MAK-UR-OWN Rubber Stamp Printing Set to print "Via Rocket" on the labels." In this case, she has added X-15 add on's to both flown covers of this posting.

The best of her flown X-15 covers are pictured in the "Ellington-Zwisler Rocket Mail Catalog," volume 2. To my knowledge, Barbara Baker's X-15 covers were flown on only four X-15 test flights with the following test pilots: 3 covers for March 25, 1960, for Joe Walker (printed autograph); three covers for September 23, 1960, for Forrest Peterson; two covers for November 18, 1966, for Pete Knight; and two covers for March 22, 1967, for Mike Adams.

Barbara Baker's 10 flown X-15 test pilot covers are identified by her address on the front of the respective cover accompanied with the test pilot's signature. There are another 10 flown X-15 test pilot Pete Knight/artist William Numeroff oversized X-15 covers, but these did not involve Barbara Baker. For a hypesonic rocket plane test program covering over seven years and 199 free flights plus additional captive X-15 flights and aborted test flight covers, Barbara Baker's 10 flown X-15 test pilot covers are a very small number of rare covers indeed. They are rarely seen and are very highly sought by space cover collectors!

Thank you Barbara for being so prescient in determining how exciting it would be to find one of these covers, and for those of us later space cover collectors, to obtain one of your rare flown X-15 test pilot covers for our space collection from the dawn of the Space Age!

posted 01-30-2016 03:51 PM               

The top is one of the three covers for Forrest Peterson's September 23, 1960 flight.

Below that is the second cover from Pete Knight's November 18, 1966 flight. Steve showed the other November 18 cover in his post above. Note the difference in hand cancel vs. machine cancel on these two.

posted 02-14-2016 06:39 PM               

As the Air Force’s test pilot school evolved into the Aerospace Research Pilot School (ARPS) in the early ‘60’s, they sought a way to train research pilots on rocket flight. The Lockheed F-104 fighter plane was about the hottest plane going at that time, basically a big jet engine with a little bit of airplane wrapped around it. So ARPS had Lockheed install a small rocket engine under the rudder of three F-104’s, earning them the designation NF-104.

The primary mission of the NF-104 was to make “zoom” flights, where the NF-104 would reach its maximum speed in jet power (about twice the speed of sound), then climb at a very steep angle and light the rocket engine. The NF-104’s could zoom over 100,000 feet altitude, giving ARPS students a great experience in rocket engine flight and near-spaceflight.

Test pilot Bob Smith took one of the NF-104’s to an unofficial record of 120,800 feet (about 23 miles) altitude on December 6, 1963 (not the flight that Steve’s cover was flown on). Meanwhile, legendary Air Force test pilot Chuck Yeager was gearing up to set the official record in the NF-104. On the same day as Smith’s flight, Yeager did a practice flight, reaching 110,200 feet altitude (about 21 miles), and carried Steve’s cover.

Four days later, Yeager put one of the NF-104’s into a spin that he could not recover from. He finally ejected from the rocketplane, and was hit in the faceplate of his pressure suit by the business end of the ejection seat’s rocket motor. He landed safely under his parachute, but was heavily burned. This episode is featured prominently in his autobiography “Yeager”, in the movie and book “The Right Stuff”, and on Bob Smith’s excellent NF-104 website.