Today in Aviation History: First Flight of the Bell X-14

On this day in aviation history, February 19, 1957, the Bell X-14 made its first flight. This aircraft, capable of vertical takeoff and landing (VTOL) and assembled from readily available components from other aircraft, was a dedicated research aircraft for the U.S. Air Force and NASA to explore using vectored thrust to transition from vertical and horizontal takeoffs to achieve level flight before making a vertical landing. It was also the first VTOL aircraft to use a jet thrust diverter system for vertical lift.

Although the conventional helicopter layout had been fully realized by the 1940s, the next evolution in vertical flight was a fixed wing aircraft that could effectively conduct vertical takeoff operations, then conduct level flight before making a vertical landing. With experience in both fixed wing and rotary wing aircraft, the Bell Aircraft Corporation of Buffalo, New York, was selected by the United States Air Force to build a testbed for this concept, which would be designed under the designation Bell Model 68.

The original configuration of the Bell Model 68 was an open cockpit all-metal monoplane with fixed landing gear that was powered by two Armstrong Siddeley Viper turbojet engines with thrust deflectors located at the aircraft’s center of gravity. In order to shorten development time and save costs, the aircraft featured components of two closely related aircraft of the Beech Aircraft Company in Wichita, Kansas: the wings, ailerons, and landing gear of a Beech Bonanza general aviation aircraft and the tail assembly of a Beech T-34 Mentor military trainer.

On February 19, 1957, the Bell X-14 made its first vertical takeoff, with the pilot keeping the aircraft in a hover until making a vertical landing. During the initial phase of the test program, the X-14 was tethered during its vertical takeoffs and landings before the engineers and pilots gained enough experience to fly the aircraft untethered. On May 24, 1958, the Bell X-14 made its first transition from hovering to horizontal flight. As the aircraft was being developed under the auspices of the United State Air Force, the X-14 was given the USAF serial number 56-4022.

By 1959, General Electric had developed the J85 engine, and it was decided to replace the two Vipers with two J85s. This change in powerplant would see the Bell X-14 become the X-14A, and on October 2, 1959, the aircraft was delivered in this configuration to the airfield from which it would conduct the vast majority of its experimental flights: NASA Ames Research Center at Moffett Field near Sunnyvale, California. The aircraft was also given the NASA serial number NASA 234 (reflected in its FAA N-number N234NA).

Over the next 22 years, the Bell X-14 would be used in a variety of flight tests involving horizontal and vertical flight, V/STOL operations, provide data for accurate pitch, yaw, and roll control in VTOL aircraft, and flight familiarity for pilots set to fly new types of VTOL-capable aircraft. It was capable of flying up to 172 mph (277 km/h, 149 knots) and reach a service ceiling of 18,000 ft (5,500 m).

One example of the aircraft’s use as a tool for familiarization with VTOL aircraft was when British test pilots Bill Bedford and Hugh Merewether came to fly the Bell X-14 before their first flights in the Hawker Siddeley P.1127 Kestrel, the aircraft that was to be the basis for the Harrier jet-jump fighter-bomber flown by the Royal Navy and the United States Marine Corps.

Another example of this was when in 1965, NASA test pilot Neil Armstrong extensively flew the Bell X-14 before flying another Bell Aircraft project, the Luna Landing Research Vehicle (LLRV), which was used to simulate the low-gravity handling of the Apollo Lunar Lander. Armstrong later recalled that learning to hover in the X-14 was akin to learning to “perch on a bubble of hot air”. With a total fuel capacity of 110 gallons and two engines that each produced 3,015 pounds per thrust, the X-14 typically had only 20 to 30 minutes of flight endurance, with Armstrong reportedly running out of fuel on more than one occasion. He compared its glide rate to that of a Cessna 206.

In 1971, the X-14A was fitted with a new pair of upgraded General Electric J85s (the J85-GE-19) and was fitted with an onboard computer, a digital fly-by-wire control system, auto-stabilization, and computer control over the engine and the thrust vectoring system. This led to the aircraft being redesignated the X-14B and receive a new NASA serial number, NASA 704 (N-number N704NA).

By the start of the 1980s, the Bell X-14B was over 20 years old, and was still operating at Ames Research Center, though there were plans from Bell Aerospace to develop new versions, such as the X-14C, which was to have an enclosed cockpit, and the X-14T trainer. But all of that came to a halt on May 29, 1981, when the X-14B suffered a serious hard landing accident at Moffett Field. A design flaw in the aircraft’s lateral control software led to a “pilot-induced oscillation”, which resulted in serious damage to the aircraft. Fortunately, the pilot in this incident, Ronald M. Gerdes, was not seriously injured, but it was decided not to repair the damage and to cancel the Bell X-14 program.

For a time, the aircraft’s fate seemed uncertain, though it was shipped unrestored to the US Army Aviation Museum at Fort Rucker (now Fort Novosel), Alabama. However, the aircraft was kept in storage outdoors due to lack of indoor space at the time and was even considered surplus to the museum and was set to be scrapped. Fortunately for aviation enthusiasts everywhere, military vehicle collector Frederick Noble Ropkey learned about the aircraft and managed to save it for his privately-owned museum, the Ropkey Armor Museum on his property near Crawfordsville, Indiana, northwest of Indianapolis. There the aircraft stood in a corner of his museum of retired tanks and several aircraft (such as a Bell UH-1 Huey and a Boeing-Stearman PT-17 Kaydet). In 2012, the Ropkey Armor Museum loaned the X-14 to the Children’s Museum of Indianapolis for a temporary exhibit before returning to Crawfordsville later that year. However, with the closing of the Ropkey Museum in 2017, the Bell X-14 is being kept in storage by the Ropkey family in the Indianapolis area.

The Bell X-14 remains an important aircraft in the history of flight research and in the development of VTOL aircraft. Perhaps one day the aircraft will be placed back on public display for its achievements to be fully recognized and appreciated.

Today in Aviation History is a series highlighting the achievements, innovations, and milestones that have shaped the skies. All the previous anniversaries are available HERE