Intended to glide back to Earth to land like an ordinary plane under the control of a pilot, Dyna-Soar was designed with a tricycle undercarriage of metal skids and wire brushes—because rubber tires were expected to melt and catch fire before the spaceplane reached the runway. In March 1962, the Air Force announced a team of six test pilots to fly their first missions into space, and began construction of a prototype. Six months later, they unveiled a full-scale plywood mock-up of the Dyna-Soar—a faintly bat-like black V-shaped aircraft with a rounded nose and broad delta wings swept sharply
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