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Movements, leaders, victories and the continuing fight for equality.
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In August 1908, a white mob attacked Springfield, Illinois’s Black community, destroying homes and businesses and lynching two Black men. National outrage over the violence helped spur the movement that created the NAACP the following year.
MORE →Reflects the personal views, recollections, and perspective of the author, Mike Davis.
This is a personal recollection on the Move fire on May 13, 1985
| X-7 | |
|---|---|
 | |
| General information | |
| Type | Experimental aircraft |
| Manufacturer | Lockheed Corporation |
| Primary user | United States Air Force |
| History | |
| First flight | April 26, 1951 |
| Retired | 1960 |
Developed into | AQM-60 Kingfisher |
The Lockheed X-7 (dubbed the "Flying Stove Pipe") is an American unmanned test bed of the 1950s for ramjet engines and missile guidance technology. It was the basis for the later Lockheed AQM-60 Kingfisher, a system used to test American air defenses against nuclear missile attack.
Development of the Kingfisher was first initiated in December 1946. The X-7 was called into production by the United States Air Force requirement for the development of an unmanned ramjet test plane with a top speed of at least Mach 3 (3,200 km/h; 2,000 mph).[1]
The X-7 project was developed under the AMC designator MX-883 and was given in the Lockheed in-house designation L-171. The L-171 was initially designated the PTV-A-1 by the USAF but was later designated the X-7 in 1951.[1] Despite its first launch being a failure, after re-development of the original ramjet, following test flights were successful.[2] A total of 130 X-7 flights were conducted from April 1951 to July 1960.[2]
The X-7 laid the foundation for the AQM-60 Kingfisher.[1] Being the testbed for several yearlong projects, the X-7 underwent many structural changes to adapt more closely for its intended purpose.[1] The Kingfisher was put up against three surface to air missiles designed to test the capabilities of the X-7; SAM-A-7/MIM-3 Nike Ajax, SAM-A-25/MIM-14 Nike Hercules, and IM-99/CIM-10 Bomarc were the missiles used in the tests.[3] During the testing of the SAMs, the X-7 outperformed the missiles and a very small number of critical hits were achieved.[2] Due to pressure and embarrassment of the military, the X-7 project was terminated in the mid-1960s.[2]
Besides the surface to air missile tests, the X-7 project was also used to test communication equipment for acceleration tests, testing aerodynamics, booster propellants, thermodynamics, and parachutes.[2]
The X-7 was constructed from steel, unlike its successors such as the A-12 and YF-12 which used titanium. These X-7 planes had wings constructed from stainless steel and a fuselage made from a nickel alloy. The use of steel was due to the inability of aluminum to endure air friction heating at hypersonic speeds, years before the widespread introduction of titanium.
The engines developed for the X-7/AQM-60 were designed to operate for a short time, to test the design for the CIM-10 Bomarc. They were redesigned with better materials for use on the hypersonic Lockheed D-21 drone launched from the back of a Lockheed M-21, a derivative of the Lockheed A-12, or from under the wing of a Boeing B-52 Stratofortress.[4]
The X-7 was launched at speed release from the underside of either a B-29 or B-50 carrier plane.[5] The jet would then take over and build up speed to its top speed of 1,600 km/h (1,000 mph), but was later redesigned to push Mach 4.3 (4,680 km/h; 2,910 mph).[1]
The recovery method of the X-7 rocket plane was a new and simple design for a test plane of its kind but functioned as designed. A multi-stage parachute was deployed after the jet had exhausted its fuel, slowing its descent.[2] Once it had reached the ground, the long metal rod on the end of the nose penetrated the ground, keeping the plane upright and preventing damage to the structure of the X-7.
In 1954, the modified X-7 underwent significant changes and was renamed the X-7A-3.[1] The wing shape was altered, and two small boosters were added to the plane, one under each wing. Due to these alterations, the drop method previously used was changed. The previous version was a complicated, bulky under-wing system, while the new design allowed for a simple fuselage-mounted dropping system. This system was used until its final flight in July 1960.[1]
Related development
Aircraft of comparable role, configuration, and era
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Source: Wikipedia. Article content is retrieved live through the MediaWiki API.
The Lockheed X-7 (dubbed the "Flying Stove Pipe") is an American unmanned test bed of the 1950s for ramjet engines and missile guidance technology. It was the basis for the later Lockheed AQM-60 Kingfisher, a system used to test American air defenses against nuclear missile attack.
X7 or X-7 may refer to:
BMW of North America, LLC is the American subsidiary of German car manufacturer BMW. Its headquarters are located at Woodcliff Lake, Bergen County, New Jersey. BMW cars have been officially sold in the United States since 1956. Max Hoffman was the exclusive importer from 1962 until 1975, when BMW of North America was established. In 2016, BMW was the twelfth highest selling brand in the United States. The BMW Spartanburg manufacturing plant in Greer, South Carolina, opened in 1994, had the highest production volume of the BMW plants worldwide, with 396,117 units in 2025. The models produced at the Spartanburg plant are the X3, X5, X6, X7, and XM SUV models. In addition to the South Carolina manufacturing facility, BMW's North American companies include sales, marketing, design, and financial services operations in the United States, Mexico, Canada, and Latin America. The North American headquarters for its large financial services subsidiary is located in Columbus, Ohio and is responsible for the captive lending for BMW automotive, BMW Motorsport, and Rolls-Royce cars, when buyers lease the vehicles or decide to finance directly with the company.
Ingenuity, nicknamed Ginny, is an autonomous helicopter that operated on Mars from 2021 to 2024 as part of NASA's Mars 2020 mission. Ingenuity made its first flight on 19 April 2021, demonstrating that flight is possible in the extremely thin atmosphere of Mars, and became the first aircraft to conduct a powered and controlled extraterrestrial flight. It was designed by NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) in collaboration with AeroVironment, NASA's Ames Research Center and Langley Research Center with components supplied by Lockheed Martin Space, Qualcomm, and SolAero. Ingenuity was delivered to Mars on 18 February 2021, attached to the underside of the Perseverance rover, which landed at the Octavia E. Butler Landing site near the western rim of the 45 km-wide (28 mi) Jezero crater. Because radio signals take several minutes to travel between Earth and Mars, it could not be manually controlled in real time, and instead autonomously flew flight plans sent to it by JPL. Originally intended to make only five flights, Ingenuity completed 72 flights over the course of nearly three years. The five originally planned flights were part of a 30-sol technology demonstration intended to prove its airworthiness with flights of up to 90 seconds at altitudes ranging from 3 to 5 meters (10 to 16 ft). Following this demonstration, JPL designed a series of operational flights to explore how aerial scouts could help explore Mars and other worlds. In this operational role, Ingenuity scouted areas of interest for the Perseverance rover, improved navigational techniques, and explored the limits of its flight envelope. Ingenuity's performance and resilience in the harsh Martian environment greatly exceeded expectations, allowing it to perform far more flights than were initially planned. On 18 January 2024, the rotor blades were broken during landing on flight 72, permanently grounding the helicopter. NASA announced the end of the mission one week later. Engineers concluded that Ingenuity's navigation system was not effective over the featureless terrain on the final flight, resulting in a crash landing. By the end of its mission, Ingenuity had flown for a total of 2 hours, 8 minutes and 48 seconds over 1,004 days, covering more than 17 kilometers (11 mi).
Before the 1921 destruction of Tulsa’s Greenwood District, Black residents had created a remarkable center of business and community life. The district included stores, professional offices, entertainment venues and homes owned by Black citizens. Understanding Greenwood means learning what was built—not only what was burned.
MORE →Shirley Chisholm, elected in 1968.
