The Bensen X-25A, Discretionary Descent Vehicle, is one of the little known developments of the Vietnam War.˜ It came about as a result of a growing number of pilots being downed beyond the range of conventional rescue methods.˜ The idea was to pack a small aircraft into the cockpit of a larger aircraft so that a pilot forced to eject could fly away from the action in a controlled descent.˜

The X-25A was simply a revised version of Bensen Aircraft Corporation's standard B-8M gyrocopter.˜ It first flew in May 1968 and was proven to be feasible but production was never funded.˜ The vehicle on display at the Museum is not the X-25A, but a B-8M gyrocopter configured to X-25A specifications.