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[i]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.[/i]
[i]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[/i]
[i]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.[/i] [b]Space Cover #353: Flown X-15 Covers of Barbara Baker[/b] 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!
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