Test Flights: Beyond the Limits

Witness the cutting edge of space research. Take a front row seat on the runway at Dryden Flight Research Center as pilots attempt to flight test the X-33's radical new "linear aerospike" rocket engine on the world's highest and fastest aircraft, the SR-71 Blacbird. It's highly explosive ! It's high risk ! It's high adventure ! Plus meet the early pioneers whose heroic flights blazed the trail for today's modern day explorers by taking on the challenges of the X-15 and the Lifting Body, the prototype for a wingless aircraft that could fly into space and back.

Follow the latest quest for speed - to make "supersonic" speed practical, and "hypersonic" speed possible. Join us as we follow the latest experiments for the next generation of a supersonic passenger jet (High-Speed Civil Transport), and visit researchers who are working on an even more advanced high-speed concept - the Hyper X, designed to push hypersonic flight into the fiery inferno of Mach 8 ... and beyound. This is the story of courage, skill and determination which drove the early pioneers to fly faster than the speed of sound, and a celebration of the lives lost in solving the operational problems of the world's fastest fighter jets to make the SR-71 possible.

Computers have opened up a whole new dimension of flight allowing aircraft to perform flips, spins and dog-fight maneuvers impossible for a pilot to physically control. Share the drama of developing the Fly-by-Wire technology that has allowed the F-16, F-18, the Stealth Fighter and the B-2 Bomber to fly. Meet the researchers who helped prevent a possible catastrophe with the space shuttle. From the radical looking X-29 to the amazing thrust vectoring X-31, see how computer technology can improve safety and deliver undreamed of performance ... just one more challenge on the cutting-edge of flight research.