Chapter 14: ►

_The Need for Speed_

THE DESERT SPRING had fused almost imperceptibly with early summer. The temperature climbed to a routine 105 degrees in the shade. Edwards became a hell of wind and sand. The wind moaned through the cracks in the temporary buildings; the sand and dust heaped in piles on the sills and in the corners. I considered it a minor miracle that the mechanics could keep the jewel-like machinery of the research airplanes operating in such conditions. We pilots retreated, between flights, to the comfort and cleanliness of air-conditioning. One day in late May, 1951, I was killing time in Walt Williams’ office, sipping coffee and discussing the future of the research airplane program which had by now become inextricably entwined with my own future.

“Walt, I’m telling you we have got to move in and do something about Bell’s X-2. The whole deal is going sour.”

My feet were propped up on the edge of Williams’ desk. An NACA research airplane pilot at Edwards got to be an old hand fast in those days. I had been there almost a year: I was an old hand. I had accumulated more than half a hundred flights in the X-4, X-1, Skyrocket, and D-558-I. I had flown supersonic. I was becoming wiser in the ways of government and industry politics. One had to at NACA, because the agency was caught in the middle of all the political currents. The X-2 situation was one of those touchy ones.

NACA existed to serve the industry. It received its planes from the military services which, in turn, were customers of the industry. Thus it was dependent on everyone for survival and, as I learned, it was important not to bite the many hands that fed it. The competition among the aircraft companies striving to sell their products to the military was intense, as was the competition among the various military services. Thus there were always a hundred minor controversies going on. We at NACA, to survive, tried to remain aloof from these internecine battles, taking protection behind the cloak of science. The information we garnered was passed out impartially to all of industry and the military services. If the military asked our advice about a certain competitive airplane, we responded in double-talk and purposely contrived, abstruse mathematical formulae. We had to do this. The governing body of NACA itself was a committee composed of the leaders in aviation. Any conclusion NACA reached was instantly known everywhere in the aviation world. It was like working in a fish bowl.

All of this naturally generated conservatism within NACA. Before we passed judgment or recommended a course of action, we had first to weigh the impact on half a hundred points of contact. Thus, while we flew fast in the air, we moved at a snail’s pace on the ground.

The data from my flights were accumulating by the bushel-basketfuls. But all of these were concerned with the subsonic, sonic, and trans-sonic zones, about which we were beginning to know a great deal. In our thoroughness, I felt, we were losing sight of the forest for the trees. The new supersonic Century Series fighters, which could outfly our research airplanes, were almost on the point of factory roll-out. There were a thousand different things we didn’t know at Mach 1.5 and above. Two especially grave unknowns loomed before us: high-speed instability and aerodynamic heating. What we needed was much more speed to stay out in front of the combat airplanes. In short, our research airplanes were too slow, and NACA was not, in my opinion, doing enough about it.

After the fabulous success of the X-1, the Air Force had invited Bell to build a second generation of straight-wing, rocket-powered X-1 airplanes. These were to be larger, faster, with longer-burning rocket engines. The planes were to have a “combat cockpit,” an uninspired idea of someone who thought the craft _might_ be used for brief high-speed reconnaissance bursts over enemy territory. These airplanes were designated the X-1-A, X-1-B, X-1-C, and X-1-D. Some said these planes might fly at Mach 3--three times the speed of sound. At the very least we knew they would nearly double the speed of the original X-1s.

These planes were conceived shortly after Yeager’s historic flight in the X-1. By then the ingenious team sparked by Bob Stanley, which had pioneered the X-1, had left Bell. Advanced airplanes are not the product of a company, but the product of men with boldness and imagination. The Air Force blew hot and cold on these advanced X-1s and supplied money, virtually a month-by-month dole. As time passed, inevitably the airplanes grew in complexity and they fell far behind schedule. Even the third model of the original X-1, which was being converted to a low-pressure fuel system, had not yet been delivered to NACA.

The same fate had overtaken the much-heralded X-2, which I was supposed to fly for NACA in due course. The X-2 had been designed years earlier, only a few months after the original X-1s. Two ships were under construction. In concept the X-2 represented a tremendous jump over the X-1. On paper it had over eight times the power--a 15,000-pound-thrust Curtiss-Wright engine--sharply swept wings, and an escape system--a nose that could be separated from the main body of the airplane in emergency. The X-2 was to be built of stainless steel in order to withstand the tremendous frictional heat it was expected to encounter at its maximum speed of nearly Mach 3. Its windshield was to be tinted to resist solar radiation, which might be a menace at the X-2’s maximum altitude of 150,000 feet. However, the X-2 was already three years behind schedule.

Altogether, then, Bell had seven rocket airplanes in the plant in various stages of construction. All of them were capable of flying at over twice the speed of sound. All of them were behind schedule, and falling farther behind every day. Meanwhile, at Edwards, no one had yet exceeded Yeager’s speed of Mach 1.4, set in the original X-1. The new military fighters were designed to exceed that speed. Even faster military fighters were then in the advance design stage.

“If we don’t watch out, Walt,” I said, “we’re going to be coming up with these data a day late and a dollar short. The gap is closing.”

Walt Williams, of course, knew this as well as I. But there was little that NACA could do about it. The situation was an “Air Force problem.” The Air Force supplied the planes. The Air Force’s main attention was focused on producing enough airplanes, right that minute, to fight the Korean War.

“Walt,” I said. “We have the technical say-so with these aircraft. We can make recommendations through headquarters in Washington. Why don’t we propose that I be assigned to the Bell plant and bird-dog this thing in our behalf?”

“Nobody would buy that, Scotty,” Williams said. “We can make technical judgments when invited to do so, but we can’t stick a man in the plant full-time.”

“Why not?” I asked. “We need these planes in a hurry, don’t we?”

“Well,” Williams said, “I really don’t think you know what you are proposing. Geez. Can you imagine an NACA man in the Bell plant? And you of all people?”

I had developed something of a reputation as a driver and an iconoclast. It was not strictly my doing. Part of it was the fact that I had arrived coincidentally with the outbreak of the Korean War, and the new sense of urgency had come at the same time. It was a fact, however, that I frequently challenged the accepted method. Like many other pilots, I particularly deplored the growing gap between desk designer and pilot. Machinery was being put in illogical places with little thought for pilot efficiency or maintenance ease; the mounting overemphasis on safety had reached the point where engineers were putting cotter keys in cotter keys. All of this was slowing us down at a time when we urgently needed to be picking up speed.

As for my proposal to go to Bell to bird-dog the lagging rocket-plane program, on reflection I am certain now that it was the goal of my life trying to peck through its shell prematurely. I realize now the time was far from propitious. The X-1, X-2 thing was a mess, and in time it would become worse. Had I gone there, I might have helped some. But I might also have fallen far short of my dream.

I let the matter drop. Williams had been around NACA far longer than Scott Crossfield. I knew and admired him as a man of action. I was certain that if he could perceive even the faintest glimmer of hope of NACA’s bailing out the rocket planes, he would be in favor of positive action, and in spite of the prevailing conservatism within the agency, would press for it. Obviously, the safest course as far as Bell was concerned was hands off.

“Besides, Scott,” Williams said, dangling a diverting sweet, “you have the Skyrocket program.”

I couldn’t argue that point.

* * * * *

The Skyrocket then was the one bright ray of hope on an otherwise darkly blotched horizon. Douglas Aircraft was a big, bustling corporation with enormous military and commercial business. The company had withstood the postwar aviation famine quite well. In fact, it had thrived on production orders for DC-6 transports, and Navy carrier-launched fighters. At Douglas there had been money and engineering talent enough to sustain a healthy research and development program, which included, of course, the D-558-II Skyrocket. During the fall of 1950 the emphasis had been placed on the conversion of the original jet-only (JATO boosted) Skyrocket to an air-launch, all-rocket vehicle, which conceivably might reach Mach 2 and 100,000 feet. On paper it was easily capable of shattering Yeager’s X-1 speed record of Mach 1.4 and Everest’s altitude record of 73,000 feet. The Navy and Douglas were anxious.

Bridgeman and the Douglas crew had arrived with the all-rocket Skyrocket in January of 1951. The plane had been parked in the Douglas hangar next door, alongside the older jet-rocket version of the Skyrocket. When the word got around, it caused a sensation. I hurried over to take a look at the ship, which I would fly soon after Bridgeman had established its “envelope,” and had, incidentally, scratched up some new speed and altitude records for the Navy. The ship was dazzlingly white. Its lines were similar to the old Skyrocket, except that it was cleaner. The jet engine scoops were gone.

When Bridgeman first climbed into the Skyrocket, snugged in the belly of the mother plane, Yeager and Everest flew chase for the Air Force with more than casual interest. However, the first blush paled. The Skyrocket was new and untried. Like all new research airplanes, it was dogged by trouble during the de-bugging stage. During January, February, and March, 1951, Bridgeman had gone aloft six times in the mother plane. Six times the launch had been canceled at the last minute.

On the seventh attempt, in April, a hair-raising event occurred that will never be forgotten at Edwards. When the mother plane bore down over the launch point, all gauges were in the green. Bridgeman, who through no fault of his own was gaining a reputation for being a Reluctant Dragon, was pressing hard for a launch. At the last second a tank pressure fell off. Grudgingly Bridgeman reported:

“No drop. This is an abort.”

He prepared to go through abort procedures to return to the base. Then to his horror he heard the mother-plane pilot, George Jansen, ticking off the launch countdown on the radio: “Ten, nine, eight, seven....”

“No drop! No drop!” Bridgeman shouted over the radio. Everyone heard him but Jansen, who had keyed his radio mike for the countdown. Nobody, not even the star Bridgeman, could get through to George. Frantically, Bridgeman brought the plane’s ailing machinery to life and squared away for an undesired launch.

Falling away from the mother plane, Bridgeman lighted the rocket engines. The Skyrocket roared heavenward, just short of Yeager’s record speed of Mach 1.4. Bridgeman growled over the radio:

“Goddammit, George, I _told_ you not to drop me.”

“You got keen friends, Bridgeman,” said Everest, who was flying chase that day.

After that incident, countdowns were shortened; research airplanes were equipped with a switch on the instrument panel, connected to a light on the mother-plane instrument panel. A green light meant the rocket pilot was ready to launch, and only if it was on would he be launched. And so far as I know, no pilot after that was dropped against his will.

The Douglas test program dragged on through May and June. At NACA we became very anxious to take over the airplane. In fact, in an unprecedented move NACA headquarters wrote Douglas telling them, in effect, to hurry up. We urgently needed the Douglas plane for high-speed flight data. Another reason was that the word had gotten around that Bridgeman was afraid of the airplane. This was unfortunate because Bridgeman, I thought, was one very superlative pilot. He later admitted that flying the Skyrocket unnerved him. But the delay in the Douglas flight program was not his fault. It was the usual work of the gremlins which flock to research planes like seven-year locusts.

Not long after my chat with Walt Williams the slow-starting Douglas Skyrocket program blazed into a stem-winding finish. In the next four powered flights, the last of which took place on August 15, 1951, Bridgeman flew the Skyrocket to a speed of Mach 1.87 and an altitude of 79,000 feet. Both figures were records by a wide margin. Bridgeman assured his place in the Hall of Fame, and demonstrated that the Skyrocket was all that they had hoped. Bill went on to the X-3 and some brilliant airmanship. The Navy, now holding the official records, beamed, and Douglas released a flood of press handouts. With little ceremony NACA took over the plane and mother ship, assigned me as Skyrocket pilot, and I got set to probe the high-speed mysteries the Skyrocket had already brought to light.

These mysteries somehow leaked to the press, which sensationally proclaimed that Bridgeman had discovered a phenomenon known as “Supersonic Yaw.” Actually we had expected it. Bridgeman had expected it. It was one of those unknowns about which we urgently needed data. Reduced to simplest terms, “Supersonic Yaw” meant that airplanes nearly became directionally unstable at high speed in thin air. The nose turned sideways and the plane skidded obliquely through the air. What we had to do then was to find some means of improving the controls or the design of airplanes to avoid it, or else develop a technique for living with it. This was one reason alone for the need for speed. The same thing could happen to our military planes, causing needless death in peace and war.

Following Bridgeman’s footsteps, I made four quick flights in the all-rocket Skyrocket. The first flight was, in a way, a milestone for me. I broke my first-flight jinx, launching and flying with no unusual difficulty. I achieved a speed of Mach 1.6 and an altitude of 60,000 feet. These were not records, but we at NACA were not out to set records. We wanted to find out in actual flight about Supersonic Yaw, among many other things.

On all flights the Skyrocket was loaded with hundreds of pounds of delicate instruments which recorded every significant fact about the flight: speed, altitude, G forces, pressures, air flows. Bridgeman had intuitively conceived a method of taking the plane to its near limits without meeting disaster. Under his skillful coaching, I successfully carried out his idea, and the information we recorded kept the engineers busy for months. After these four flights the plane was laid up for some badly needed repairs which had been deferred during our quick investigation.

One day not long after I had completed the last of these flights, I stopped at the coffee machine to pass the time of day with Hubert Drake and Bob Carmen, NACA’s long-range design “dreamers.” In a friendly way they probed for first-hand information about the Skyrocket.

“How’d it go?” Drake asked.

“It was all right,” I said. “You people and Douglas had already sensed what to do and I just did it. No special trick. We got the data, but the problem is that the airplane is already old for its time. The plane is obsolete for those speeds.”

“Yes, I know,” said Drake.

“Some day I hope we can get ahead of this game,” I said. “I would like to see a research airplane built from scratch that can fly like it is supposed to--stable, that is--and far enough ahead of the game to provide some useful data to industry. In another few months they’ll be catching up with us.”

“You ought to come down and see our stuff,” Carmen said.

“What have you got?”

“We think we have an airplane that can perform at Mach 6 and fifty miles,” Drake said.

“How do you get that kind of performance?”

“It’s simple. First off, the mother plane is a rocket plane. She has five Viking engines. The research airplane, a modified X-2 with a one-rocket engine, rides piggy-back. You take off and launch at Mach 3 and about 70,000 feet. The research airplane goes on up to maybe Mach 6 and maybe 250,000 feet. It’s all done with existing hardware.”

I had a vision then of trying to make ready and light off the five temperamental rocket engines on the mother plane. The effort would be something like the invasion of Europe. The odds that everything would work, and that the research airplane would launch--and light off--were, conservatively, about a hundred to one. Still, it was an idea. Dreamers should never be discouraged. An engineering analysis of the Columbus voyage had shown it couldn’t be done.

“Well, why don’t you write it up and send in a report?” I asked. “God knows someone ought to try to get ahead of the game. That would be a big jump forward.”

“We _did_ write it up,” Drake said, crumpling his paper coffee cup. He aimed carefully but missed the big G.I. can.

“What happened?”

“We turned it in to Walt Williams,” Drake said. “That was back in November, 1950. He read it and said it was ‘premature.’ Told us to pigeon-hole it for a while.”

The Drake-Carmen report was still in a pigeon-hole, gathering dust. In later years Walt Williams still felt it was wise to delay that report. Maybe he was right. Had it been brought forward in late 1950, NACA might have been laughed out of school. No one else was ready.