X-15 Monument For Major Michael Adams

[BrianT]

On my way to the Death Valley Daze event I stopped by the X-15 Monument for Major Michael Adams.  The program was before my time, but I was familiar with the aircraft with its depiction in movies and books.  Of note Neil Armstrong was one of the original pilots.

 

For those not familiar, a little background.  The X-15 was more a maned flyable rocket than a plane setting altitude and speed records in the 60's, while crossing the edge of outer space.  The X-15's highest speed was 4,520 mph or Mach 6.7 at an altitude of 102,100 feet and its highest altitude was 67 miles or over 354,000 feet.

 

There were 199 total X-15 flights.  Of those flights, 13 of them flew above 264,000 feet or 50 miles and qualified for Astronaut wings. 

 

The final flight was on Nov 15, 1967 by USAF Major Michael Adams.  Prior being a test pilot for the USAF/NASA, Major Adams was a fighter/bomber pilot in the Korean War who flew 49 combat missions.

 

During his X-15 flight, Major Adams reached an altitude off 266,000 feet and began the planned experiments.  During that time the plane went into an uncontrolled spin at Mach 5.  The investigation later revealed that Major Adams tried several times to recover control of the aircraft but was unable to.  Major Adams did manage to stop the spin after descending to 155,000 feet, but by the time he did, he was in an inverted dive at Mach 4.7 at an angle of 40-45 degrees.  As he neared 65,000 feet, traveling at Mach 3.9 and experiencing 15 G's of force vertically with 8 G's laterally the plane broke up northeast of the town of Johannesburg, CA.  The wreckage of the plane was scattered over a large area of the Mojave desert that's now mostly BLM land.

 

The Monument was built as an Eagle Scout project in 2004.  The Monument is built at the location where the front portion of the fuselage and Major Adams remains were recovered.  BLM had to approve of the project due to the location on BLM land.  BLM contributed by also donating the cement bags for construction by the Scouts. The Monument engraved plaque is unique.  The X-15 outer skin was made out of a special metal to resist the high heat from the speeds traveled.  The Eagle Scout managing the project was able to procure a piece of that special metal from the manufacturer to use as the plaque for engraving. 

 

It's a little hard to find the site being a quarter mile from the nearest paved road and the only signage limited to the brown BLM trail markers.  Once on the dirt road its easy enough to follow, but locating where to turn off the pavement isn't easy as there are no signs.  Basically 4 miles north of U.S. 395 on Trona Road look for a dirt road on the west side of the road with brown BLM trail markers a few car lengths off the pavement.

 

Now the pics:

 

The start of the dirt trail with the brown BLM markers

 

 

 

Overall memorial pics

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Old pic of firefighters surveying some of the wreckage.

 

 

[MichiganBob]

It's important to celebrate bravery. Thanks for the great summary and photos BrianT.

[TEWKS]

Cool! 

[RandyShields]

Brian, thanks so much for this post and the photos.  Glad you were able to persevere and find this site.  Kudos to the Scouts who had the vision to erect the monument. It reminds me of the original, rudimentary, hand-built items for what was to become the permanent Flight 93 memorial in PA, that was likewise in the middle of fields and not easy to find. 

 

I enlarged the photo that included the X-15 pilots and see that the first test pilot was A. Scott Crossfield, who was portrayed in The Right Stuff as the passed-over contemporary of Chuck Yeager for the first Bell X-1 flight that exceeded the sound barrier.  At least Crossfield got the record for the first pilot who exceeded Mach 2. 

 

All these guys were incredibly dedicated and brave.