Douglas X-3 Stiletto
The Stiletto was the United States’ fledging aerospace agency’s (then NACA) first foray into aircraft designed for sustained supersonic flights. NACA thus designed the craft to be extremely aerodynamic, with a long, tapered nose and a narrow fuselage. The plane was named for the shoe dagger (thanks to commenter System Idle Process for pointing out that error), but it also looks a lot like a plague doctor’s mask. And you have to admit, the ‘X-3′ painted on its nose looks like a font well ahead of 1954. NACA hoped the X-3 would be able to reach speeds of Mach 2, or twice the speed of sound, though it never achieved that goal.
