Bell X-2

Bell X-2
X-2 under it's B-50 drop aircraft
Class Overview
Total Built	2
Made by	Bell Aircraft
First Flown	(first drop glide) 27 June 1952 (first powered flight) 18 November 1955
Length	37 ft 10 in (11.53 m)
Height	11 ft 10 in (3.61 m)
Wingspan	32 ft 3 in (9.83 m)
Wing Area	260 sq ft (24 m2)
Airfoil	NACA 2S-(50) (05-50) (05-arc)
Empty weight	12,375 lb (5,613 kg)
Full weight	24,910 lb (11,299 kg)
Engine	1 × Curtiss-Wright XLR25 liquid-fuelled rocket engine, 15,000 lbf (67 kN) thrust at sea level
Speed	2,094 mph (3,370 km/h, 1,820 kn) Mach 3.196
Ceiling	126,200 ft (38,500 m)
Crew	1
Usage
Status	Retired 27 September 1956
Main user(s)	United States Air Force, National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics
Developed From	X-1
[Source]

The Bell X-2 (nicknamed "Starbuster") was an X-plane research aircraft built to investigate flight characteristics in the Mach 2–3 range. The X-2 was a rocket-powered, swept-wing research aircraft developed jointly in 1945 by Bell Aircraft Corporation, the United States Air Force and the National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics (NACA) to explore aerodynamic problems of supersonic flight and to expand the speed and altitude regimes obtained with the earlier X-1 series of research aircraft.