posted 01-28-2024 07:53 AM               

Space Cover 738: Yeager Flies the M2F1

Sixty years ago this week, famed test pilot Chuck Yeager flew an experimental aircraft that was a far cry from the X1 rocketplanes that made him famous. This was the M2F1 – a bathtub shaped plywood glider with no wings that was NASA's first foray into wingless flight. Wingless flight was attractive for (then) future orbital spaceplanes that could land on a runway without the wings that could melt off during re-entry. The M2F1 was a low budget ($30,000) project to see if such a wingless (e.g. – "lifting body") vehicle could fly and land.

We covered the early M2F1 flights in Space Cover of the Week (SCOTW) 20 and 134. These early flights consisted of ground-tows to a few feet altitude behind a souped-up Pontiac Catalina, and the first few air-towed flights behind a C47 cargo plane, mostly by NASA test pilot Milt Thompson.

Well, by December 1963, the M2F1 had been through at least 100 ground tows (records of the ground tows are incomplete) and 16 air tows. It was time for some other pilots to take their turn with the tubby glider. At the time, Chuck Yeager was the commandant of the USAF Aerospace Research Pilot School (ARPS) at Edwards, and they were interested in the M2F1. So, on December 3. 1963, after Thompson made one check flight, Yeager was air-towed aloft to land the M2F1. In typical Yeager form, he flew it outside the parameters of a normal flight and greased it in for a smooth landing, telling everyone "She handles great!". NASA test pilot Bruce Peterson also flew the M2F1 that day and broke the landing gear on his second flight of the day. As explained in our prior SCOTW's on the M2F1, having covers postmarked for these flights was a hit or miss process (a miss for most of the flights), and no covers appear to exist for the December 3, 1963 flights.

The landing gear got repaired and beefed-up, and the little M2F1 was ready to fly again in late January 1964. On January 29 Thompson, Peterson, and Yeager each flew two air tows. On January 30 Yeager and Don Mallick each flew two air tows. These were Yeager's last flights in the M2F1, but he came away enthused and interested in getting more advanced lifting bodies for ARPS. The cover above was postmarked for the January 30 flights and I got Yeager's signature on it at an airshow in Louisville, KY in 1994. When I asked him if he remembered flying the M2F1, he replied, "I sure do!" and smiled at the recollection, then we got interrupted by someone else.

Covers also exist for the January 29 flights (below) but fail to list Yeager as one of the pilots and fail to account for his two flights that day (another facet of the "hit or miss" process of M2F1 covers).

Interestingly, two other "celebrities" flew the M2F1 in ground tows – Joe Engle and Fred Haise, both on April 22, 1966, just days before they reported to JSC as part of the Astronaut Class of 1966. And nope, no covers...

Most importantly, the plucky little M2F1 (left in the photo above) spawned a set of second-generation lifting bodies – the M2F2 (right in the photo above), HL10, and X24A that helped influence the design of the (then) future Space Shuttle and formed the foundation for today's Dream Chaser cargo vehicle.

posted 01-28-2024 04:43 PM               

Fred Haise, Joe Engle and James W. Woods piloted the M2-F1 on one ground-towed, tethered flight each.

This cover is a Dryden Flight Research Center Public Affairs Office cacheted cover and is significant and appropriate here, as it's canceled for the final M2-F3 flight, which was also the final flight in the M2 Lifting Body Program (M2-F1, M2-F2 and M2-F3).

posted 02-03-2024 01:50 PM               

The bad news is that there aren't a whole lot more M2F1 covers out there. In SCOTW 20 I outlined that covers for only 16 M2F1 flight dates seem to exist.

The good news is that there aren't a whole lot more M2F1 covers out there! I have 15 of the 16. So here is a Ken Havekotte-inspired montage of all 15 of mine (with a Milt Thompson pic thrown in):

Note that the July 19, 1966 cover (lower left corner) is an M2F2 cover – Thompson flew ground tows of the M2F1 and a M2F2 flight that day.

posted 02-03-2024 02:37 PM               

Seven pilots flew the M2-F1 on untethered flights, with four piloting the M2-F2 and four piloting the M2-F3. A cover autographed by the seven M2-F1 pilots is shown above, with covers autographed by the four M2-F2 pilots and the four M2-F3 pilots shown here. Also shown is an M2-F3 cover autographed by all nine pilots who flew at least one of the three M2 Lifting Body aircraft (this last cover is a very lucky cover, as it survived nine separate mailings to and back from each of the nine M2 pilots, from 1978 to 1986).

X-15 pilot Milt Thompson piloted both the M2-F1 and M2-F2 on their first flights, with X-15 pilot Bill Dana piloting the M2-F3 on its first flight. Jerry Gentry was the only pilot to fly all three M2 Lifting Body aircraft.

The M2-F2 flew 16 flights from July 1966 to May 1967. But the M2-F2 flights ended with a serious landing accident that injured pilot Bruce Peterson and severely damaged the M2-F2. It was rebuilt as the M2-F3 and it then flew 17 flights from June 1970 to December 1972, with John Manke having the honor of flying the M2-F3 on its and the M2 Program's final flight.

The M2 Lifting Body Program was very successful and it and the HL-10, X-24A and X-24B all contributed to the development and success of the NASA Space Shuttle.