Douglas X-3 Stiletto

X-3 Stiletto
Role	Experimental aircraft
Manufacturer	Douglas
Designer	Schuyler Kleinhans, Baily Oswald and Francis Clauser
First flight	15 October 1952
Retired	23 May 1956
Status	Preserved at National Museum of the United States Air Force
Primary users	United States Air Force; NACA
Number built	1

The Douglas X-3 Stiletto was a 1950s United States experimental jet aircraft with a slender fuselage and a long tapered nose, manufactured by the Douglas Aircraft Company. Its primary mission was to investigate the design features of an aircraft suitable for sustained supersonic speeds, which included the first use of titanium in major airframe components. Douglas designed the X-3 with the goal of a maximum speed of approximately 2,000 mph (3,200 km/h), but it was seriously underpowered for this purpose and could not even exceed Mach 1 in level flight. Although the research aircraft was a disappointment, Lockheed designers used data from the X-3 tests for the Lockheed F-104 Starfighter which used a similar trapezoidal wing design in a successful Mach 2 fighter.

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