Lockheed NF-104A

The Lockheed NF-104A was an American mixed-power, high-performance, supersonic aerospace trainer that served as a low-cost astronaut training vehicle for the North American X-15 and the projected Boeing X-20 Dyna-Soar. Three aircraft were converted from Lockheed F-104A Starfighter airframes and flew with the Air Force Aerospace Research Pilots School between 1963 and 1971. Besides the General Electric J79 jet engine each carried a Rocketdyne AR2-3 rocket burning JP-4 and hydrogen peroxide, plus a reaction control system of small thrusters in the nose and wingtips for flight where air is too thin for ordinary control surfaces. The wingspan was extended, the tail enlarged and the cannon and radar removed. The aircraft climbed above 120,000 feet, and one was destroyed in an accident flown by Chuck Yeager that was told in The Right Stuff.