Just Registered, led design of X-43, I was with McDonnell Douglas Phantom Works, St Louis

X-43 Design Lead

X-43 Design Lead

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My name is Carl F Tarricone, in 1995 I led the Design and system integration team for X-43 Hyper-x. We accomplished that design in 8 weeks. Once we positioned the bulkheads we then started placing the necessary flight systems where they needed to be. The GASL engine module was placed first. A 3-D model of the vehicle was developed using Unigraphics 9 and then upgraded to Unigraphics 13 for solids modeling and updating purposes.

George Orton was Program Manager in St Louis, Ed Eiswirth was Chief Engineer and I was in charge of Design and System Integration.
Our two daunting challenges were heat and physical space to place the systems.

NASA wanted over 350 channels of telemetry and a variety of sensors covering the vehicle.

The tubing and wiring needed was ridiculous and was near impossible to model.

We came up with two unique approaches to vehicle construction, first, instead of applying numerous Thermal Protection System (TPS) tiles to the outer surface, we introduced the idea of applying large pieces and then machining the foam ceramic in a large NC controlled machine.

The other unique feature was how we gained access inside the vehicle for service and flight prep. We developed threaded plugs made from the AETB (Alumina Enhanced Thermal Barrier) developed by McDonnell Douglas Huntington Beach.

Those two design features were somehow leaked to the Microcraft Team before the contract to build the vehicle was awarded. The system arrangement that was built is pretty much what was built.

Coincidentally, I was also assigned to Copper Canyon around 1983 and another proprietary program at the same time.
I was actually assigned to Hyper-x as a way to fail because of the extremely tight schedule and a clear reason to discharge me.
I had one hell of a team and there were only about 8-10 of us and worked long hours. We sent the finished CAD model to NASA 15 minutes before deadline.

Carl F Tarricone

Boeing Phantom Works (Retired 2009)
McDonnell Douglas Phantom Works 1983-2009)

I hope this sheds some light on this monumental vehicle in light of the current interest in Hypersonic Flight Regime.
 
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X-43 Design Lead said:
My name is Carl F Tarricone, in 1995 I led the Design and system integration team for X-43 Hyper-x. We accomplished that design in 8 weeks. Once we positioned the bulkheads we then started placing the necessary flight systems where they needed to be. The GASL engine module was placed first. A 3-D model of the vehicle was developed using Unigraphics 9 and then upgraded to Unigraphics 13 for solids modeling and updating purposes.

George Orton was Program Manager in St Louis, Ed Eiswirth was Chief Engineer and I was in charge of Design and System Integration.
Our two daunting challenges were heat and physical space to place the systems.

NASA wanted over 350 channels of telemetry and a variety of sensors covering the vehicle.

The tubing and wiring needed was ridiculous and was near impossible to model.

We came up with two unique approaches to vehicle construction, first, instead of applying numerous Thermal Protection System (TPS) tiles to the outer surface, we introduced the idea of applying large pieces and then machining the foam ceramic in a large NC controlled machine.

The other unique feature was how we gained access inside the vehicle for service and flight prep. We developed threaded plugs made from the AETB (Alumina Enhanced Thermal Barrier) developed by McDonnell Douglas Huntington Beach.

Those two design features were somehow leaked to the Microcraft Team before the contract to build the vehicle was awarded. The system arrangement that was built is pretty much what was built.

Coincidentally, I was also assigned to Copper Canyon around 1983 and another proprietary program at the same time.
I was actually assigned to Hyper-x as a way to fail because of the extremely tight schedule and a clear reason to discharge me.
I had one hell of a team and there were only about 8-10 of us and worked long hours. We sent the finished CAD model to NASA 15 minutes before deadline.

Carl F Tarricone

Boeing Phantom Works (Retired 2009)
McDonnell Douglas Phantom Works 1983-2009)

I hope this sheds some light on this monumental vehicle in light of the current interest in Hypersonic Flight Regime.
Click to expand...
Welcome aboard Carl - I live in St. Louis, do you still call it home? Would like to meet you!

Enjoy the Day! Mark
 
X-43 Design Lead said:
My name is Carl F Tarricone, in 1995 I led the Design and system integration team for X-43 Hyper-x. We accomplished that design in 8 weeks. Once we positioned the bulkheads we then started placing the necessary flight systems where they needed to be. The GASL engine module was placed first. A 3-D model of the vehicle was developed using Unigraphics 9 and then upgraded to Unigraphics 13 for solids modeling and updating purposes.

George Orton was Program Manager in St Louis, Ed Eiswirth was Chief Engineer and I was in charge of Design and System Integration.
Our two daunting challenges were heat and physical space to place the systems.

NASA wanted over 350 channels of telemetry and a variety of sensors covering the vehicle.

The tubing and wiring needed was ridiculous and was near impossible to model.

We came up with two unique approaches to vehicle construction, first, instead of applying numerous Thermal Protection System (TPS) tiles to the outer surface, we introduced the idea of applying large pieces and then machining the foam ceramic in a large NC controlled machine.

The other unique feature was how we gained access inside the vehicle for service and flight prep. We developed threaded plugs made from the AETB (Alumina Enhanced Thermal Barrier) developed by McDonnell Douglas Huntington Beach.

Those two design features were somehow leaked to the Microcraft Team before the contract to build the vehicle was awarded. The system arrangement that was built is pretty much what was built.

Coincidentally, I was also assigned to Copper Canyon around 1983 and another proprietary program at the same time.
I was actually assigned to Hyper-x as a way to fail because of the extremely tight schedule and a clear reason to discharge me.
I had one hell of a team and there were only about 8-10 of us and worked long hours. We sent the finished CAD model to NASA 15 minutes before deadline.

Carl F Tarricone

Boeing Phantom Works (Retired 2009)
McDonnell Douglas Phantom Works 1983-2009)

I hope this sheds some light on this monumental vehicle in light of the current interest in Hypersonic Flight Regime.
Click to expand...
I thought of this later, in spite of the fact that we were working to a ridiculous schedule, NASA came back 2 weeks before deadline and wanted 5lbs of 1500 psi water to cool the engine cowl door. That tank wasn’t much bigger than a football but it caused us to move things one more time.
 
X-43 Design Lead said:
I thought of this later, in spite of the fact that we were working to a ridiculous schedule, NASA came back 2 weeks before deadline and wanted 5lbs of 1500 psi water to cool the engine cowl door. That tank wasn’t much bigger than a football but it caused us to move things one more time.
Click to expand...
Would it have been cooled similar to the nose of BGRV? (A vehicle ahead of it's time.)

 
X-43 Design Lead said:
It’s funny you mentioned BGRV, I made a trip to the Air Force Museum in Dayton Ohio to look at one. One feature we considered using was the mechanical device used to maintain the CG location . It was a screw drive with a weight traveling forward and aft.
Click to expand...
In so far as the cowl door cooling. It was a water passage around the edge of the door to keep it from binding during the boost phase.
 
Great to have you here Carl! It would be interesting to hear if you can tell anything about the early COPPER CANYON work at McDonnell Douglas? Paul Czysz has stated in various places that the initial design for what would later become their NASP entry was based on the Mach 12 cruiser from the 1960s (MAS-H-020?).

McDD0099.jpg
 

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Paul and I know each other and were on Copper Canyon. I was responsible for coming up with a fabrication and assembly approach for the vehicle. Being almost entirely Titanium and that it was around 300’ long we considered a facility that could be filled with inert gas and operators using breathing apparatus while welding it together.
 
Here’s a NASA photo of the interior system arrangement. That’s the McDonnell Douglas Phantom Works design. I’m sure there had to be some modification of that design during construction but that’s the design Microcraft had to build.
Everybody including NASA knew a wind tunnel model company that had never designed an “AIRFRAME” couldn’t come up with this! It was packed pretty tight!
Did it in 8 weeks!
 

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Closer to a warhead than an airframe.

This was another reason I wanted an Energiya-like side-mount SLS, in that when it wasn't serving as an HLLV, it could serve as a giant Navaho with shuttle orbiter sized hypersonic airframes released from orbit for high-speed tests after the 747 orbiter released it for low speed tests in-atmosphere.

I get my head bitten off for suggesting that...but perhaps SpaceX SuperHeavy rockets might allow large scale tests?

How much data for hypersonics can really be gained from something surfboard sized if that?
 
Welcome!

X-43 Design Lead said:
Paul and I know each other and were on Copper Canyon. I was responsible for coming up with a fabrication and assembly approach for the vehicle. Being almost entirely Titanium and that it was around 300’ long we considered a facility that could be filled with inert gas and operators using breathing apparatus while welding it together.
Click to expand...
Ah, the Russian solution to titanium submarine hulls.

I'm terrified to think about just how much argon you'd need for that job...
 
X-43 Design Lead said:
My name is Carl F Tarricone, in 1995 I led the Design and system integration team for X-43 Hyper-x. We accomplished that design in 8 weeks.
Click to expand...
Thanks for the posts. When you say "design" what do you actually mean? It seems mostly around preliminary design i.e. placing of systems, structure etc within a previously defined OML from what you're saying. Was this then handed over to someone else for detailed part design?
 
red admiral said:
Thanks for the posts. When you say "design" what do you actually mean? It seems mostly around preliminary design i.e. placing of systems, structure etc within a previously defined OML from what you're saying. Was this then handed over to someone else for detailed part design?
Click to expand...
The design model we created was fully dimensioned. It initially was done in Unigraphics 9 but we updated it to Unigraphics 13 solids and we actually started building hardware during the build proposal.
Yeah it was fully modeled except for the telemetry tubes and wires.
 
X-43 Design Lead said:
The design model we created was fully dimensioned. It initially was done in Unigraphics 9 but we updated it to Unigraphics 13 solids and we actually started building hardware during the build proposal.
Yeah it was fully modeled except for the telemetry tubes and wires.
Click to expand...
The OML was already defined and wasn’t violated.
 
X-43 Design Lead said:
... Copper Canyon. ... it was around 300’ long ...
Click to expand...
You can't stop there. Some of us have been trying, and failing, to dig up good details of the design of Copper Canyon, Have Region, Science Realm, Science dawn and others for decades. If anything remains on this or any other similar design... we'd *love* to see it!

GRM-29, perhaps?
 
Orionblamblam said:
You can't stop there. Some of us have been trying, and failing, to dig up good details of the design of Copper Canyon, Have Region, Science Realm, Science dawn and others for decades. If anything remains on this or any other similar design... we'd *love* to see it!

GRM-29, perhaps?
Click to expand...
I’m the one who followed and built the demonstration articles for the rocket plane.First was the Engine Strut, which was 6” in diameter and 5’ long. It consisted of continuous Silicon Carbide fibers woven into a fabric made of 1/8” wide titanium foil. The finished strut was 1/8” thick and could take 250k lbs compression loads. The outer skin panels were roll bonded titanium. We rolled the packs in Niles, Ohio in a steel mill.
The strut was made in Lowell Massachusetts at an Avco facility.
The tooling case looked like a cannon barrel and was welded before final compaction in a HIP chamber in Andover Massachusetts.
Our first attempt failed, Avco had used ordinary mild steel for the tool details. With 40,000 psi of Argon working on it a minute piece of carbon in the steel caused the inner sleeve to burst inward. We had enough fabric left for one more part. I convinced Larry Smith, the program manager, who was the Vice President of Engineering at McDonnell to make a second attempt. That strut cost $250k each. We used Nuclear Qualified steel for the second set of tools. Guaranteed Clean!
The second one turned out perfect
We made enough roll bonded panels to build the pressure test fuselage section.
The first time it was pressurized operator error or erroneous readings caused the article to burst.
There were only two people on Copper Canyon and this program. Me and Joe Waldner, who had been the Vice President over the F-18 Program.
 
publiusr said:
Closer to a warhead than an airframe.

This was another reason I wanted an Energiya-like side-mount SLS, in that when it wasn't serving as an HLLV, it could serve as a giant Navaho with shuttle orbiter sized hypersonic airframes released from orbit for high-speed tests after the 747 orbiter released it for low speed tests in-atmosphere.

I get my head bitten off for suggesting that...but perhaps SpaceX SuperHeavy rockets might allow large scale tests?

How much data for hypersonics can really be gained from something surfboard sized if that?
Click to expand...
no, put them on top. Side mount is useless for other tasks.
No, Superheavy is not designed for side loads. Also too big.
 
OliverSedlacek said:
0.93% of atmosphere is argon, plenty of it around
Click to expand...
You'd just need some 30,000m^3 per plane being worked on. 100m length times 50m wide times 6m tall. Plus airlocks about that big so you could roll a completed plane into the airlock and pump the argon out replace with fresh air.
 
Perhaps a good use of vertical sinkholes? Dual use as autoclave for heat shields or other components?
 
The Argon gas was just to purge the building and was at 1 atmosphere. When I started at MAC in 1977 we were using Nitrogen in our autoclaves for composites production. We vented it to the atmosphere. We then used combusted natural gas to fill the vessels ( we had 4 12x40’ and two 15 x 40 ‘ in the new composites facility bldg 29A.
In composites, you need an inert atmosphere in the vessel to prevent fires.
 
For NASP, we had to dream BIG! We couldn’t bolt it together because of the loads.
Don’t forget, these programs started in the mid sixties and we finally had a working scale model 30 years later (Hyper-X). I could write a book on the requirements and associated problems we had to deal with.
I was in Producibility when I started and was assigned to F/A-18 first. PS.. before I started college in 72, I had started a four year apprenticeship in Tool & Die making. I completed that in 1977 while at the same time graduated from RIT with a degree in mechanical engineering. I was a natural fit for design and development of advanced composites. I was on F-15 and especially AV-8B. Which was 26% composites. After all that I went to the 6th floor of the McDonnell Aircraft Engineering Campus, just simply called Advanced Design.
Mc Donnell had hundreds of really talented people working on these concepts. We all considered ourselves lucky to be assigned to them.
 
Did X-43A get some internal _nickname_?
 
X-43 Design Lead said:
For NASP, we had to dream BIG! We couldn’t bolt it together because of the loads.
Don’t forget, these programs started in the mid sixties and we finally had a working scale model 30 years later (Hyper-X). I could write a book on the requirements and associated problems we had to deal with.
I was in Producibility when I started and was assigned to F/A-18 first. PS.. before I started college in 72, I had started a four year apprenticeship in Tool & Die making. I completed that in 1977 while at the same time graduated from RIT with a degree in mechanical engineering. I was a natural fit for design and development of advanced composites. I was on F-15 and especially AV-8B. Which was 26% composites. After all that I went to the 6th floor of the McDonnell Aircraft Engineering Campus, just simply called Advanced Design.
Mc Donnell had hundreds of really talented people working on these concepts. We all considered ourselves lucky to be assigned to them.
Click to expand...
I said it early in this thread, I was definitely assigned to X-43 because it seemed impossible to design it in 8 weeks and it would be an easy task to show me the door. There wasn’t more than 20 people on the program. A nickname… we didn’t have one. Those were 16 hour days for us. Upper management in Phantom Works weren’t really interested in it and we had some freeloaders along for the ride.
 
A year before I graduated in 1977 I approached a company in Burbank, CA for a position as an engineer. The company was called WED Enterprises. Some might know who they are before I tell you.
It stood for Walter E Disney Enterprises, it’s now called Disney Imageneering. They told me in 1977 that if I had co-oped with them I could come now but I should get a few years experience in a high tech company and come back. After two years at Mac I forgot about Disney. At my 25 year anniversary I told my colleagues that story.
 
We still need to dream big. Bezos money would be best spent on you and. NASP revival---Musk has boost-back down.
 
publiusr said:
Perhaps a good use of vertical sinkholes? Dual use as autoclave for heat shields or other components?
Click to expand...
That might actually be a good idea. Inside a building to block the wind, but saves you from having to make airlocks.
 
It would be a giant silo.

Maybe fill with water for large scale water forming.

I might want a large vertical slit to pour steel into a plate to be wound inside the silo and welded in one piece.
 
publiusr said:
It would be a giant silo.

Maybe fill with water for large scale water forming.

I might want a large vertical slit to pour steel into a plate to be wound inside the silo and welded in one piece.
Click to expand...
Maybe in different buildings. You don't want water anywhere near where you're welding titanium.
 
Someone asked if i had anything more on X-43. i found this on a CD, we made this video after our final brief. One of the Design Engineers on X-43 narrated it, Tony Weirich from St Louis Phantom Works. I also remembered our Thermal Analysis guy Kei Yun Lau, MDC Technical Fellow, youll find him on LinkedIn.
This video explains the system arrangement and the details of the surrounding structure and components.
https://flic.kr/p/2pfczi8
 
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X-43 Design Lead said:
Here’s a NASA photo of the interior system arrangement. That’s the McDonnell Douglas Phantom Works design. I’m sure there had to be some modification of that design during construction but that’s the design Microcraft had to build.
Everybody including NASA knew a wind tunnel model company that had never designed an “AIRFRAME” couldn’t come up with this! It was packed pretty tight!
Did it in 8 weeks!
Click to expand...
That’s Terry Bishop in the photo - I inherited his desk in the NASA Armstrong Flight Research Center Avionics and Instrumentation Branch, Code-421.
 
X-43 Design Lead said:
Paul and I know each other and were on Copper Canyon. I was responsible for coming up with a fabrication and assembly approach for the vehicle. Being almost entirely Titanium and that it was around 300’ long we considered a facility that could be filled with inert gas and operators using breathing apparatus while welding it together.
Click to expand...
This 300 feet length got me wondering if the McDonnell Copper Canyon vehicle was related to this (from the Orient Express thread)?
canard_droop-jpg.699083


Since the at least the later McDonnell NASP designs don't look like they could realistically be that big? Also Paul Czysz on several interviews has hinted at Copper Canyon and Orient Express being related:
So I sat down with what was to be our demonstrator for Copper Canyon. Now, it
wasn't the same as Tony DuPont's, because we had different weights. Sandy said,
"Okay, if I have the basic airframe and we have the propulsion package (scramjet /
ramjet engine modules), what can we do with the airplane? Think about it in terms of
a military airplane and of a civilian airplane."
So what I did is start looking at cruise ranges that could be demonstrated with
this demonstrator-size vehicle, and I came out with resizing the ramjet engines for a
good long-range, like 12,000-mile cruise vehicle, that could be also used for the
military. It didn't have enough fuel to fly to orbit, so you traded off the fuel for a
significant payload and some equipment.
Then the next thing I did is filled the demonstrator with fifty passengers and put
enough methane in it to fly about 5,000 miles. That originally was the Orient Express
demonstrator. That was all from the same airframe that we would build for Copper
Canyon, except with the engines changed to meet the flight regime.
Click to expand...

And then there's this "Hypersonic Aeronautical Demonstrator" apparently from the early 1980s from the same document as the above image, looks like a scaled down version.

MDC1983 Hypersonic Aeronautical Demonstrator.jpg
 
Phys.org had a brief write-up on X-43, with an article entitled "Wind Tunnel shows hypersonic jet engine flow can be controlled optically."
phys.org

Wind tunnel study shows hypersonic jet engine flow can be controlled optically

What if the future of space travel were to look less like Space-X's rocket-based Starship and more like NASA's "Hyper-X," the hypersonic jet plane that, 20 years ago this year, flew faster than any other aircraft before or since?
phys.org phys.org

No laser in the nose, just a new type of sensor--described better in the parent journal "Aerospace Science and Technology."

Every so often, JPL announces water finds on Mars with the hopes of shaking funds loose--trying to recapture the high public interest Sojourner sparked.

Is this story similar hot air spewed by the air-breathing community in their hopes to remain relevant?

--Or is this a real breakthrough?
 
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