Chapter 21: ►

_End of the Line_

During my first five years at Edwards NACA achieved a remarkable safety record. No NACA pilot had bought the farm; no airplane had been lost through accident. This was due partly to luck, partly to excellent maintenance and a thoughtful approach to flight test. But our luck was bound to run out. It did, finally, in August, 1955.

I was sitting at my desk in the pilots’ room, roughing out a report on a Skyrocket flight--the old ship was still going strong--when the emergency broke. Somewhere high over the base, Stan Butchart, the B-29 mother-plane pilot, was about to air-launch Joe Walker in the X-1-A. I was absently following the progress of the flight over the radio loudspeaker as mother-plane pilot, chase pilot, and Joe Walker, strapped in the cockpit of the rocket plane, talked back and forth, getting set for the drop.

“We have a fire.” The words crackled from the loudspeaker. I snapped to attention.

“Fire?” Butchart repeated.

“Yes. There’s been an explosion.”

I raced upstairs to the NACA control tower. Soon it was jammed with NACA engineers and mechanics, crowding the loudspeaker, shouting conflicting accounts of the accident, and helpful and unhelpful suggestions.

By that time NACA had had possession of the flashy X-1-A, in which Yeager and Murray set their speed and altitude records, and her sister-ship, the X-1-B, for a little over one year. We had not logged much flight time on the ships. NACA had shipped them back to the Bell factory for ejection-seat installation, and then filled both planes with data instruments. All this took time and delayed the flight program. The installation of the ejection seats caused considerable controversy. I was in favor of proceeding without them because of the urgency of the program and because Yeager, Murray, and Everest had demonstrated that the airplanes could be recovered from unstable flight. As senior pilot my views were carefully weighed, but the majority at NACA favored the escape device.

The fire that broke out in the X-1-A was later traced to a similar source as that which destroyed the X-1-D, Queenie, and the first X-2 over Lake Ontario. After those accidents the airplanes were modified to reduce the possibility of a single catastrophic explosion. In theory, a fire from that source might be “controlled,” or held down to a smouldering effect. This was all theory, however. In my view, a fire in any airplane was dangerous. A fire in a rocket plane, loaded with tons of Lox and alcohol, brought to mind the picture of a bomb with a lighted fuse. In my opinion, there was only one thing to do: get rid of it, and fast.

Each rocket-plane pilot had worked out, in conjunction with the pilot of the mother ship, a procedure to follow if an emergency developed in either plane. Jack McKay, who had developed into a very able test pilot, and I had agreed with Butchart that if something went wrong _after_ either of us had entered the cockpit of the Skyrocket and had closed the canopy, he would immediately jettison the rocket plane, leaving the rocket-plane pilot to look after his own hide. As a matter of fact, McKay and Butchart later ran into such an emergency. One day something went haywire in a propeller on the B-29 mother plane. As agreed, Butchart instantly cut loose the Skyrocket. A split second later the B-29 prop tore loose and cartwheeled through the space the Skyrocket had just vacated. McKay landed without difficulty; but had Butchart not cut the parasite plane loose, the prop would have ripped into its fuel tanks, causing an explosion that would have killed everyone, including McKay.

“What’s the situation up there?” Vensel yelled into the control-tower mike.

“Well, we’ve got a fire in the X-1-A,” Butchart replied coolly. “We got Joe Walker out of the cockpit. He’s standing by in the bomb-bay compartment now. The fire’s pretty bad. I figure we ought to drop this thing pretty quick.”

“Now let’s not take any chances,” Vensel said. “Don’t try to save the airplane if there’s any danger.”

I fought down an urge to grab the mike and tell Butchart to pull the jettison lever then without another second’s delay. But he was already getting enough advice from the ground, and I couldn’t get near the mike, anyway.

The Air Force chase plane was piloted by Major Kit Murray. He had been tucked up close to the X-1-A when the explosion occurred. The X-1-A wheel doors had blown off and smashed into Murray’s plane.

Above the chatter in the control room I heard Murray report: “I might have a little damage here. I’ll try to stick around ... Butch, you’re getting a lot of smoke out of the back end. The Lox and hydrogen peroxide are dumping overboard....”

Murray, with a plane damaged to an extent no one thought to investigate, was still hanging on, relaying an account of the scene from the outside. But how long could he remain on station with a damaged plane? Was he needlessly risking his own life?

I ran to the nearest telephone and put through a call to Air Force Fighter Ops. Pete Everest answered.

“Pete,” I said, “Murray’s up there. His plane’s been hit. How soon can you get a relief chase plane up?”

“We’ll be up there in five minutes,” Everest said, ringing off hurriedly. I think he jumped into an airplane and flew up to relieve Murray. In any case, Murray soon landed without further difficulty.

Now a big debate was raging in the NACA control room about what to do: keep the rocket plane attached to the mother plane and try to save it, or throw it away? No one asked me my opinion, but I gave it anyway:

“Throw that damned thing away as fast as you can.”

The experts thronging the control room soon swung to this conclusion. Then a second debate arose over where to drop the airplane. There was concern that the X-1-A might fall on a house or an automobile. Vensel called the Air Force and requested they assign a remote bombing area into which the stricken rocket plane might be jettisoned. While this discussion took place, the fire in the X-1-A raged about the plane.

A new thought flashed to my mind. If the Lox had drained out of the rocket plane and the alcohol remained in its tank, the plane would be dangerously tail-heavy. When it fell away from the mother plane, it might pitch up sharply, perhaps fatally ramming the mother plane. Had the fact that the Lox drained away reached Butchart amidst all the bureaucratic chatter about where to drop the X-1-A?

I ran downstairs and found a radio mike in a secluded room.

“Butch,” I called, breaking in on the radio circuit. “This is Scotty.” I kept my voice low, trying to restore some semblance of order in the chaos on the radio circuit.

“Go ahead, Scotty,” Butchart replied.

“The Lox is drained, Butch. Be sure to pull some G’s when you drop her. Otherwise, she’ll pitch up and might climb right into the bomb-bay.”

“Okay, Scotty, already thought of it, thanks anyway. I’m going to cut her now. I’m pulling G’s. I’m in a hard left bank. I think it will go okay.”

Butchart pulled the lever and the smoking X-1-A disengaged from the mother plane. As we feared, the tail-heavy plane pitched up. In fact, it climbed right by the B-29 and almost _looped_ before dipping and spinning crazily into the desert floor.

Butchart received further instructions from the ground. Among other things, he was advised to land the mother plane as quickly as possible. I knew Butchart’s good judgment would prevail. He would check his ship thoroughly, with landing gear down and locked, before descending. Butchart had brought many damaged airplanes back to base in the Pacific during World War II.

This accident reduced our stable of rocket airplanes to three: the X-1-B, the X-1-E (still being slowly rebuilt by hand), and the Skyrocket--and set off another prolonged investigation which grounded the Bell airplanes. It also influenced the future of the Bell X-2. That jinxed ship had finally arrived back at Edwards and was then being feverishly prepared for its first powered flight by Pete Everest and the Bell crew. Following the loss of the X-1-A, the Air Force passed the word that if the X-2 had not flown by December 31 of that year, the project would be completely abandoned. The plane would be consigned to the Smithsonian.

Facing this harsh deadline, Everest finally got off a shaky powered flight. It took place on November 18, 1955, less than six weeks before the expiration date set for the X-2 program. It was almost ten years to the day since the X-2 had been conceived, and about three years and five months after Skip Ziegler had made the first X-2 powerless glide flight at Edwards. Everest held the X-2’s speed subsonic and landed hastily after a fire broke out in the tail of the plane. This flight gained the program a reprieve--an extension. In spite of this Pyrrhic victory, it seemed dead certain at the time that the X-2 would never provide the U. S. with useful aeronautical research data in time. The other rocket planes in our stable were almost obsolete.

* * * * *

By comparison, NACA’s advanced research airplane, then officially dubbed the X-15 (the experimental vehicles from the X-6 to X-14 were mostly unmanned missiles), was showing strong promise. Six months after the Air Force asked for bids, or by June, 1955, all returns were in. Four companies--North American, Bell, Douglas, and Republic--submitted proposals. The lack of interest among the other aircraft companies is explainable. Research airplanes, as their stormy history clearly indicates, are unprofitable projects from a management standpoint. In the beginning they require superlative and expensive design and engineering talent. They do not result in big production orders, which are the bread and butter of the industry. Since the X-15 was an NACA project, all information and new theory and ideas developed with the plane would be made available without charge to all of industry. Many companies reasoned: why assign our most talented people to develop ideas which our competition can exploit?

The bids were meticulously analyzed. The Republic proposal was extraordinarily good, but it showed clearly that the company lacked experience in the research airplane field. The Douglas airplane was essentially a redesigned version of the “advanced Skyrocket,” which its engineers hoped to sell to the Navy. The Bell airplane looked very good and demonstrated the company’s long experience in rocket airplanes. But because of many political factors, Bell’s wonderful flair for exotic inventions, and the recent performance of the X-1-A and X-2 planes, the Bell bid was not approved. In retrospect, it seems to me that from the beginning the contract was almost pre-ordained for the fourth company, North American.

Ironically, many at North American, for many of the reasons just cited, were not seriously interested in building the X-15. Its designers, like those of other companies, had huddled with NACA engineers to find out what was wanted. Afterward the North American advanced design group came up with a scheme superior in detail to, but in general outline quite like, the other proposals. Actually, the North American proposal was carried through only as a “design exercise” for the company engineers, a not uncommon practice in the industry. One man, however, Harrison (“Stormy”) Storms, Chief Engineer of the Los Angeles Division, with a long-range look ahead, had sparked a growing interest in the endeavor within the high levels of the company.

There were several reasons why the Air Force found North American the ideal company to build the X-15. For one thing, North American was an old friend of the Air Force and primarily an Air Force contractor, with an outstanding history going back to World War II, when it produced P-51s and B-25s by the thousands. At that time North American had built more jet airplanes--F-86s and F-100s--than any other company, and its relationships with the Air Force were close and very simpatico. North American’s engineers were conversant with high speeds and the problems of aerodynamic heating and instability. The company had great depth, in terms of engineering talent and money, on which it could draw in case of trouble. Its Rocketdyne division was producing the most powerful and reliable rocket engines in the U. S.--the power-plants for the missiles Thor, Jupiter, and Atlas. North American engineers were then in the advance design stages of a Mach 3 fighter, the F-108, which would benefit directly from the X-15 experience. Finally, North American, a Los Angeles corporation, was convenient to the Edwards test base.

* * * * *

“Walt, I want to make a proposal to you.”

“What is it, Scotty?” Williams said. He bounced out of his chair and paced about his office. I followed him with my eyes, but I didn’t move from my chair.

“Do you remember my proposal in 1953 to Dr. Dryden to go to Bell and ride herd on the X-2?”

“Sure. Certainly.”

“You see where the X-2 is now,” I said. “That would have been a pretty good idea if we had followed it through. Right?”

“Maybe,” Williams said. “Then again, maybe not. It may be that no one could have salvaged the X-2. Why?”

“I’ve been thinking about this X-15,” I said.

“Well, now, that’s a surprise. You wouldn’t kid me, would you? Have you been thinking about anything else?”

“It’s a little difficult to spend time thinking about it, what with having to do most of your thinking besides.” At that, Williams chuckled and tossed his pencil at me, missing by yards.

“Okay, Scotty. I can see you’re being real serious,” he said. “What do you have in mind?”

“I want to do with the X-15 what I proposed for the X-2. I want to be assigned to the North American plant full-time on the X-15 project, carry out the company demonstration flights, and then return with the airplane to NACA, Edwards, and make the maximum-performance flights. I want to get in on the project from the beginning and stay with it right on through to completion.”

Williams sat down heavily in the chair behind his desk. He doodled on his scratch pad, rubbed his head, turned and peered out the window, staring fixedly into the desolate wastes of tumbleweed, and said nothing for fully three minutes. I could imagine in detail every single political thought running through his mind. (The stars had long since gone from my eyes.) I could see him mentally arranging the complicated chessboard, putting NACA men, North American men, Air Force men, and other industry men in their proper starting order and mentally playing the game through. I had done it many times myself. Apart from the strictly personal relationships, there were larger questions to resolve in this game: how would it affect NACA’s relationship with the Air Force, with North American? How would it affect the operation at Edwards? What about the Air Force pilots--Pete Everest, Chuck Yeager, Kit Murray, and the other experienced hands? There were a thousand moves that might leave the King--in this case, Williams--or the X-15 program--vulnerable.

“Why does this thing mean so much to you?” Williams asked me.

“I’ve told you before, Walt. We must do something to get one of these research airplanes built in time to do some good,” I said.

“But what will North American say?” Williams said. “That’s a huge company. A good company. They’ve got about five thousand engineers on the payroll down there. You know how they’ll react if we come butting in.”

The answer from Williams was already coming through loud and clear. It was “no.” His reasons for arriving at that conclusion were perfectly sound, but the answer ill-suited my ambition. The time had come, I knew, to part company with NACA. It would not be easy to walk away dry-eyed. I had cut my teeth there, and formed many deep and lasting friendships, including that with Walt Williams. My future, however, lay not with NACA but with the product of its total genius, the X-15.

“Walt, this is the end of the line,” I said.

“Scotty. You want to think this one over carefully. You’re not a young pilot any more--you’re thirty-four. If past history is any example, that plane won’t be flying for a long, long time. You might be forty years old by then, and they might be looking for a younger pilot. A hundred things could go wrong.”

“But you don’t understand. It’s _not_ just the flying. I _do_ want to fly the plane. But I want to help _build_ it, too. I want to be a part of that airplane,” I said.

“We’ve still got a lot of airplanes around here you can be part of,” Williams said. “You practically built the X-1-E yourself. And if they ever finish the X-15 you can fly that, too--if you live that long.”

“I’m sorry, Walt. I may never be able to explain this properly to anyone. But I am going with that airplane.”