Category:Northrop M2-F
The Northrop M2-F2 was a heavyweight lifting body built by the Northrop Corporation in 1966. The "M" refers to "manned" and "F" refers to "flight" version. Each flight was dropped from the B-52 carrier aircraft's wing pylon. 16 glide flights occured between 12 July 1966 and the final crash landing on 10 May 1967 (the footage of this one was used for the opening sequence of The Six Million Dollar Man).
As valuable information had already been obtained, this was contributing to an upgraded design.
As NASA pilots said the M2-F2 had lateral control problems, so when the M2-F2 was rebuilt at Northrop and redesignated the M2-F3, it was modified with an additional third vertical fin -centered between the tip fins- to improve control characteristics. The second maiden flight was on 2 June 1970, after three years of new studies and rebuilt. 27 flights later (the last one on 20 December 1972), the programm reached its end and the NASA donated the M2-F3 vehicle to the Smithsonian Institution in December 1973.
This page lists all IMPDB pages that feature a variation of the Northrop M2-Family (M2-F2 and M2-F3, both with the serial 803).
See also
Pages in category "Northrop M2-F"
The following 3 pages are in this category, out of 3 total.