OTD In Space - December 22: 1st Flight of the HL-10 Lifting Body

On Dec. 22, 1966, the HL-10 Lifting Body took its first flight.

The HL-10 was a heavy-lifting, horizontal landing plane built by the Northrop Corporation. The "HL" in its name stands for "heavy lifting," and the "10" indicates that this was the tenth design in the series. The $1.8 million aircraft was delivered to NASA’s Langley Research Center in Virginia in January of 1966. Nearly a year later, Bruce Peterson piloted the plane for its inaugural flight. He took it for an unpowered glide test flight over Rogers Dry Lake at Edwards Air Force Base in California. Unfortunately, the HL-10 had serious control problems. But Peterson was able to land it safely. Engineers later figured out that the problem could be solved by changing the shape of the fins. The second HL-10 flight didn’t take off until 1968, but the HL-10 was much easier to pilot after its design was tweaked.