Space Cover #338: Engle Goes For ThreeFifty years ago this week, Joe Engle performed his third astronaut-wings flight in the X-15, all three occurring in a record setting 3-1/2 month period.
The top cover is machine canceled at Edwards, CA on June 29, 1965 when Engle made his first astronaut wings flight. The cover carries a Boy Scout Cachet. Engle reached 280,600 feet altitude (53 miles) on this mission to evaluate piloted re-entry techniques from space using a winged vehicle. After landing from his first spaceflight, Engle took a little dig at the (then) current splashdowns for Mercury and Gemini – Engle: "OK you can call the carryall [van]. I can get out of the capsule here." To which NASA replied: "Rog, we don't want you to get seasick after that!"*
Engle did it again on August 10, 1965 as commemorated on the middle Boy Scout cacheted cover also machine canceled at Edwards, CA. Engle battled a continually misbehaving yaw damper but still reached 271,000 feet altitude (51 miles).
Finally on October 14, 1965 Engle made his third astronaut wings flight, and final X-15 flight as commemorated on the lower, Zaso cacheted cover, reaching 266,500 feet (just over 50 miles) altitude.
Even though this was his last X-15 flight, all of you already know that Engle went on to become a NASA astronaut, coming close to walking on the moon, commanding two ALT flights of the Shuttle Enterprise, and commanding two orbital Shuttle flights. He remains one of the nicest, most approachable ex-astronauts ever in the corps...
* Quoted from "The X-15 Rocket Plane: Flying the First Wings into Space," Michelle Evans, 2013, University of Nebraska Press, ISBN 978-0-8032-2840-5. If you don't have a copy of this book, you NEED one!
posted 10-11-2015 05:32 AM
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