i

TOWARD MACH 2:

Edited by J. D. Hunley

Featuring Comments by

Stanley P. Butchart

Robert A. Champine

A. Scott Crossfield

John Griffith

Richard P. Hallion

and

Edward T. Schneider

Edited by J. D. Hunley

Featuring Comments by

Stanley P. Butchart

Robert A. Champine

A. Scott Crossfield

John Griffith

Richard P. Hallion

and

Edward T. Schneider

THE DOUGLAS D-558 PROGRAM

TOWARD MACH 2:
ii

TOWARD MACH 2:

THE DOUGLAS D-558 PROGRAM
iii

NASA SP-4222

TOWARD MACH 2:

THE DOUGLAS D-558 PROGRAM

Edited by: J. D. Hunley

Featuring Comments by:

Stanley P. Butchart

Robert A. Champine

A. Scott Crossfield

John Griffith

Richard P. Hallion

and

Edward T. Schneider

The NASA History Series

National Aeronautics and Space Administration

NASA Office of Policy and Plans

NASA History Office

Washington, D.C. 1999
iv

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Toward Mach 2: The Douglas D-558 Program/edited by J.D. Hunley; featuring

comments by Stanley P. Butchart . . . [et al.].

p. cm.—(NASA history series)

Papers of the NASA Dryden Flight Research Center Symposium on the D-558

Program, February 4, 1998.

“NASA SP: 4222.”

Includes bibliographical references and index.

1. High-speed aeronautics—United States—History—Congresses.

2. Skystreak (Supersonic planes)—History—Congresses. I. Hunley,

J.D., 1941- . II. Series.

TL551.5.T69 1999 99-11963

629.132’305’0973–dc21 CIP
v

Contents

Foreword ...................................................................................................................xi

Introduction .............................................................................................................xii

Symposium Transcript

Welcome by Edward T. Schneider .........................................................................1

Richard P. Hallion’s Comments on the D-558-1....................................................2

Robert A. Champine’s Recollections of the D-558-1 ..........................................14

John Griffith’s Recollections of the D-558-1.......................................................20

Richard P. Hallion’s Comments on the D-558-2..................................................28

Stanley P. Butchart’s Recollections of the D-558-2 and P2B ..............................38

A. Scott Crossfield’s Recollections of the D-558-2 .............................................46

Audience Questions and Panel Responses...........................................................56

Wrap-up by Edward T. Schneider ........................................................................60

Appendix — The Aircraft .......................................................................................61

Documents

1 Memo, Hartley A. Soulé, Discussion of D-558-1 airplane projects at

NACA Headquarters on June 8, 1949, Date: June 13, 1949................................64

2 Memo, Donald R. Bellman, Information concerning elevator vibration of

the D-558-1 airplane, September 19, 1951 ..........................................................67

3 Memo, Donald R. Bellman, Progress report for the D-558-1 airplane (142)

for the period September 22 to October 5, 1951, Date: October 12, 1951 ..........73

4 Memo, Donald R. Bellman, Progress report for the D-558-1 (142) airplane

for the period June 28 to July 11, 1952, Date: July 23, 1952...............................74

5 Memo, Donald R. Bellman, Progress report for the D-558-1 (142) research

airplane for the period July 12 to July 25, 1952, Date: July 30, 1952 .................75

6 Memo, Donald R. Bellman, Progress report for the D-558-1 (142) research

airplane for the period November 1 to December 1, 1952, Date: December

11, 1952................................................................................................................76

7 Memo, Herman O. Ankenbruck, Progress report for the D-558-II (37974)

research airplane for the period August 25 to September 7, 1951, Date:

September 13, 1951..............................................................................................77

8 Memo, Herman O. Ankenbruck, Progress report for the D-558-II (144)

research airplane for the period September 22 to October 5, 1951, Date:

October 16, 1951..................................................................................................78
vi

9 Memo, Herman O. Ankenbruck, Progress report for the D-558-II (144)

research airplane for the period November 3 to November 16, 1951, Date:

November 21, 1951..............................................................................................81

10 Memo, Herman O. Ankenbruck, Progress report for the D-558-II (144)

research airplane for the period December 1 to December 14, 1951, Date:

December 18, 1951 ..............................................................................................82

11 Memo, Herman O. Ankenbruck, Progress report for the D-558-II (144)

research airplane for the period June 28 to July 11, 1952, Date: July 23, 1952 ..83

12 Memo, Herman O. Ankenbruck, Progress for the D-558-II research airplane

(144) for the period November 1 to December 1, 1952, Date: December 11,

1952......................................................................................................................84

13 Memo, Gareth H. Jordan, Progress report for the D-558-II (144) research

airplane for the period September 1 to September 30, 1954, Date: October 6,

1954......................................................................................................................86

14 Memo, Gareth H. Jordan, Progress report for the D-558-II (144) research

airplane for the period September 1 to September 30, 1956, Date: October 3,

1956......................................................................................................................87

15 Memo, Gareth H. Jordan, Progress report for the D-558-II (144) research

airplane for the period November 1 to November 30, 1956, Date: December 4,

1956......................................................................................................................88

16 Memo, Gareth H. Jordan, Progress report for the D-558-II (144) research

airplane for the period December 1 to December 31, 1956, Date: January 8,

1957......................................................................................................................89

17 Memo, James R. Peele, Progress report for the D-558-II (37975) research

airplane for the period August 25 to September 7, 1951, Date: September 13,

1951......................................................................................................................90

18 Memo, James R. Peele, Progress report for the D-558-II (37975) research

airplane for the period September 8 to September 22, 1951, Date: September

28, 1951................................................................................................................91

19 Memo, Jack Fischel, Progress report for the D-558-II (145) research airplane

for the period October 6 to October 19, 1951, Date: November 6, 1951 ............92

20 Memo, Jack Fischel, Progress report for the D-558-II (145) research airplane

for the period October 20 to November 2, 1951, Date: November 8, 1951 ........94

21 Memo, Jack Fischel, Progress report for the D-558-II (145) research airplane

for the period December 1 to 14, 1951, Date: December 18, 1951 .....................96
vii

22 Memo, Jack Fischel, Progress report for the D-558-II (145) research airplane

for the period June 28 to July 11, 1952, Date: July 23, 1952...............................97

23 Memo, Jack Fischel, Progress report for the D-558-II (145) research airplane

for the period July 26 to August 8, 1952, Date: August 15, 1952........................98

24 Memo, Jack Fischel, Progress report for the D-558-II (145) research airplane

for the period October 1 to November 1, 1952, Date: November 21, 1952 ........99

25 Memo, Jack Fischel, Progress report for the D-558-II (145) research airplane

for the period November 1 to December 1, 1952, Date: December 11, 1952....101

26 Memo, Jack Fischel, Progress report for the D-558-II (145) research airplane

for the period November 1 to December 30, 1954, Date: December 20, 1954 .104

27 Memo, Jack Fischel, Progress report for the D-558-II (145) research airplane

for the period September 1 to September 30, 1954, Date: October 6, 1954 ......105

28 Memo, Jack Fischel, Progress report for the D-558-II (145) research airplane

for the period March 1 to 31, 1955, Date: April 18, 1955 .................................106

29 Memo, Jack Fischel, Progress report for the D-558-II (145) research airplane

for the period July 1 to July 31, 1955, Date: August 11, 1955...........................107

30 Memo, Jack Fischel, Progress report for the D-558-II (145) research airplane

for the period June 1 to 30, 1956, Date: July 24, 1956 ......................................108

31 Letter, Ira H. Abbott, [NACA] Assistant Director for Research, To: Major

General Frederick R. Dent, Jr., USAF, Commanding General, Wright

Air Development Center, August 13, 1951.......................................................109

32 Letter, J.W. Crowley, [NACA] Associate Director for Research, To: Chief,

Bureau of Aeronautics, Department of the Navy, Washington, D.C., Subject:

Request for assignment of Navy omni[-]environment full-pressure pilot suit

to NACA pilot of the D-558-II airplane, October 23, 1951............................... 110

33 Letter, J.E. Sullivan, Director of Airborne Equipment Division, [Navy] Bureau

of Aeronautics, To: National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics, Subject:

Navy Omni-environment Full-pressure Suit, assignment of to the NACA

pilot of the D-558-II airplane, November, 1951 ................................................ 112

34 Letter, F.A. Santner, Director, Naval Air Experimental Station, To: Chief,

[Navy] Bureau of Aeronautics (AE-513), Subject: TED No. NAM AE 5101

Omni-environment full-pressure suit, research, development and test of;

Flight test in the D-558-II airplane at Edwards Air Force Base, Edwards,

Calif., 3 August to 4 September, 1953, Date: December 8, 1953 ..................... 113

35 Letter, Walter C. Williams, Chief, [NACA] High-Speed Flight Research Station,
viii

To: NACA, Subject: Choice of color for Research Aircraft at Edwards,

December 3, 1951 .............................................................................................. 116

36 Memorandum for Gordon S. Williams, News Bureau Manager, Boeing

Airplane Company, April 25, 1952 [Subject: air-launch technique].................. 118

37 Letter, Walter C. Williams, Chief, NACA High-Speed Flight Research

Station, To: NACA, Subject: Increased thrust of the LR8-RM-6 rocket

engine, August 28, 1952.....................................................................................124

38 Letter, Walter C. Williams, Chief, NACA High-Speed Flight Research

Station, To: NACA Headquarters; Attention: Mr. Clotaire Wood, Subject:

Research Airplane Panel Meeting, January 2, 1953..........................................126

39 Letter, Lieutenant Colonel Marion E. Carl, Senior School, Marine Corps

Education Center, Marine Corps School, Quantico, Virginia, To: Chief,

Bureau of Aeronautics, Aer-AC-241, Subject: Reports of flights in the

NACA D-558-II, October 28, 1953 ...................................................................129

40 Memo, Donald R. Bellman, Aeronautical Research Scientist, To: NACA

Headquarters, Subject: Rocket nozzle extensions used on the LR8 engine

for the D-558-II, No. 144 airplane, January 25, 1954........................................136

41 Letter, Ira H. Abbott, [NACA] Assistant Director for Research, To: Chief,

Bureau of Aeronautics, Department of the Navy, Subject: Results of use of

the rocket nozzle extensions for the LR8 engine on the D-558-II airplane,

February 3, 1954 ................................................................................................139

42 Memo, Marion I. Kent, [NACA HSFRS] Administrative Officer, To: Mr.

Bonney [NACA Headquarters], Subject: The research piloting experience

of Joe Walker and Stan Butchart, April 29, 1954..............................................141

43 Letter, De E. Beeler, Acting Chief, [NACA] High-Speed Flight Station, To:

NACA Headquarters, Subject: Low temperature difficulties with hydrogen

peroxide in the model D-558-II airplane, July 29, 1954...................................142

44 Letter, B.F. Coffman, Chief, Bureau of Aeronautics, To: National Advisory

Committee for Aeronautics, Subject: Improved version of the LR8 liquid

engine for use in the D-558-II airplane, June 2, 1954........................................143

45 Letter, Ira H. Abbott, [NACA] Assistant Director for Research, To: Chief,

Bureau of Aeronautics; Department of the Navy, Subject: Improved version

of the LR8 liquid rocket engine for use in the D-558-II airplane, July 23,

1954....................................................................................................................146

46 Letter, B.F. Coffman, Bureau of Aeronautics, To: National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics, Subject: Improved version of the LR8 liquid rocket

engine for use in the D-558-II airplane, August 11, 1954..................................147
ix

47 Letter, John W. Crowley, [NACA] Associate Director for Research, To:

Deputy Chief of Staff/Development, United States Air Force, Subject:

Supply support for the B-29, NACA Serial No. 137, based at the NACA

High-Speed Flight Station, Edwards, Calif., August 25, 1955 ..........................150

48 Letter, Joseph R. Vensel, Acting Chief, NACA High-Speed Flight Station,

To: Chief, Bureau of Aeronautics, Subject: Completion of the D-558-II

Research Program, June 17, 1957.....................................................................151

Index .......................................................................................................................153

The NASA History Series......................................................................................157

The four D-558 pilots with a model of the D-558-2 at NASA’s Dryden Flight Research Center on

February 4, 1998. From the viewer’s left to right: Scott Crossfield, Stan Butchart, Bob

Champine, and John Griffith. (NASA photo EC98-44406-2 by Tony Landis).
x

Foreword

In the long and proud history of flight research at what is now called the NASA

Dryden Flight Research Center, the D-558 project holds a special place as being one

of the earliest and most productive flight research efforts conducted here. Data from

the D-558 and the early X-planes enabled researchers at what became NASA’s

Langley Research Center to correlate and correct test results from wind tunnels with

actual flight values. Then, the combined results of flight and wind-tunnel testing

enabled the U.S. aeronautical community to solve many of the problems that occur in

the transonic speed range (about 0.8 to 1.2 times the speed of sound), such as pitchup, buffeting, and other instabilities. This enabled reliable and routine flight of such

aircraft as the century series of fighters (F-100, F-102, F-104, etc.) as well as all

commercial transport aircraft from the mid-1950s to the present.

At the symposia honoring the 50th anniversary of the D-558-1 Skyrocket’s first

flight in February 1948, four D-558 pilots — Stanley P. Butchart, Robert A.

Champine, A. Scott Crossfield, and John Griffith — plus Air Force Historian Richard

Hallion offered insightful comments and meaningful anecdotes that deserved a wider

audience than the few hundred people who attended. To make their recollections and

related documents available to such an audience, NASA is publishing this volume. I

am sure it will find a ready reception among the large group of people interested in

the history of aviation.

Kevin L. Petersen

Director, Dryden Flight Research Center

Frebruary 1, 1999
xi

Introduction

The Douglas D-558-1 Skystreak and D-558-2 Skyrocket were, with the Bell XS-1,

the earliest transonic research aircraft built in this country to gather data so the

aviation community could understand what was happening when aircraft approached

the speed of sound (roughly 741 miles per hour at sea level in dry air at 32 degrees

Fahrenheit). In the early 1940s, fighter (actually, in the terms of the time, pursuit)

aircraft like the P-38 Lightning were approaching these speeds in dives and either

could not get out of the dives before hitting the ground or were breaking apart from

the effects of compressibility—increased density and disturbed airflow as the speed

approached that of sound and created shock waves.

At this time, aerodynamicists lacked accurate wind-tunnel data for the speed range

from roughly Mach 0.8 to 1.2 (respectively, 0.8 and 1.2 times the speed of sound, so

named in honor of Austrian physicist Ernst Mach, who — already in the second half

of the 19th century — had discussed the speed of a body moving through a gas and

how it related to the speed of sound). To overcome the limited knowledge of what

was happening at these transonic speeds, people in the aeronautics community —

especially the National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics (NACA), the Army Air

Forces (AAF — Air Force after 1947), and the Navy — agreed on the need for a

research airplane with enough structural strength to withstand compressibility effects

in this speed range. The AAF preferred a rocket-powered aircraft and funded the

XS-1 (eXperimental Supersonic, later shortened to simply X), while the NACA and

Navy preferred a more conservative design and pursued the D-558, with the NACA

also supporting the X-1 research.

The flight research took place at the Muroc Army Air Field, with participation

from a NACA contingent under Walter C. Williams that became the core of the later

NASA Dryden Flight Research Center. While the D-558-1 with its jet engine was

slower and less glamorous than the rocket-powered, air-launched XS-1, it flew for

longer durations and thus gathered a lot of data more easily than its Bell counterpart.

The D-558-2 was variously configured with jet and rocket engines, conventional

takeoffs and air launchings. But the rocket-powered D-558-2 number 2 became the

first aircraft to reach Mach 2.

The number 1 Skyrocket first flew on February 4, 1948. On the 50th anniversary of that date, the Dryden Flight Research Center held a symposium in honor of

the event. It was introduced by current Dryden research pilot Edward T. Schneider

and featured four of the original research pilots — Stanley P. Butchart, Robert A.

Champine, A. Scott Crossfield, and John Griffith — talking about their experiences

with the D-558 and its launch aircraft, the P2B-1S (Navy version of the B-29). In

addition, Air Force historian Richard P. Hallion spoke about the Skystreak and the

Skyrocket aircraft.

The previous night, the Center also held a symposium with a different format.

Instead of each participant making a formal presentation, they all sat in a semicircle

on stage and held a round-robin discussion, also with Ed Schneider as moderator.
xii

Because all of the participants had valuable and interesting comments to make, it

seemed imperative to preserve and print them so that those not privileged to attend

the ceremonies could benefit from their recollections.

Naturally, there was a good bit of overlap in the information presented and stories

told at the two sessions, so it would have been redundant to provide transcripts of

both symposia. What I have chosen to do instead is to take as a basis the formal

presentations made on the actual anniversary day and to integrate into them comments and anecdotes from the night before that were not included in the daytime

session. Obviously, this violates the verbatim transcripts not only through the

juxtaposition of related materials from two separate sessions, but also because I had

to use my own words to create the appropriate transitions from one sentence or

paragraph to another in the now-combined document. Despite such violation to the

verbatim transcripts, I believe that the resultant narrative is true to the spirit of both

sessions.

To ensure this, I have circulated the draft of this publication to the participants for

their correction. I have also added footnotes to explain (or in a couple of instances,

correct) comments made verbally from memory in front of an audience. The

participants have contributed to the footnotes in a number of instances. In addition, I

have appended historical documents from the National Archives about the D-558

program that add to the materials presented by the participants in the symposia.

These are purposely scanned as documents into the study (rather than retyped) to

give something of the flavor of looking at the documents themselves in an archive.

I believe the resultant publication adds significantly to the available literature on

the D-558 flight research. It should be of interest to scholars, others interested in the

history of aviation, and especially people working at or retired from the Dryden

Flight Research Center. I would like to thank the participants in the symposia and

Mrs. Gloria Champine for their help in getting their comments ready for publication.

In addition, Tony Landis was very helpful in selecting photographs to illustrate the

D-558 story and generously contributed some of these photographs from home to be

scanned into the monograph. He, Peter Merlin, and Ed Schneider were kind enough

to read the draft of this publication and offer corrections before it was sent to the

participants. Besides Tony Landis, other members of the Dryden Photo Lab assisted

in getting photographs assembled for this publication. I would be remiss, however, if

I did not point out that I was not able to find several of the photographs used in the

two symposia. Given the press of other projects competing for my time, I had to

leave them out of this publication in the interest of getting it ready for printing. The

All-Quality Secretarial Service of Morris Plains, New Jersey, professionally transcribed audio tapes from the two symposia, and Kelley Clark of OAO provided the

tapes through the intermediacy of Lori Losey. Steve Lighthill did an artful job of

laying out the typescript and photos, and Darlene Lister handled the copy editing in

her usual professional way. I greatly appreciate the help all of these people provided.

J. D. Hunley, Historian

NASA Dryden Flight Research Center
xiii 1

NASA DRYDEN FLIGHT RESEARCH CENTER

SYMPOSIUM ON THE D-558 PROGRAM

INTRODUCTION: Ed Schneider

FIRST SPEAKER: Dr. Dick Hallion

DATE: February 4, 1998

PLACE: Dryden Flight Research Center

SCHNEIDER: Good morning, ladies and gentlemen. My name is Ed Schneider.

Welcome to our presentation today.

Let me carry you back in time now to 50 years ago today, February 4, 1948.

Here at Muroc, as it was known then, John F. Martin of the Douglas Company

climbed into a D-558 Phase 2 Skyrocket, and lifted it off the ground for its very first

flight. On November 20, 1953, Scott Crossfield flew another Skyrocket to a speed of

Mach 2.005, to become the first man in history to fly faster than Mach 2.

Today is your chance to join us in a colloquium, which is going to be a piece of

living history. Our very first speaker is Dr. Dick Hallion. And I would like to take

some time now to introduce him. And from that point on, Dick will take you through

the rest of the program.

Dick Hallion is the Historian for the United States Air Force in Washington,

D.C., and directs its worldwide historical and museum programs. He’s got a tremendous amount of experience in this area. Dick has a Ph.D. in aviation history from the

University of Maryland and has been active as an author, and a curator, and a

museum operator for many, many years. He’s worked for the National Air and Space

Museum. He has been the Chief Historian for the Air Force Flight Test Center. He

worked in staff positions for the Aeronautical Systems Division at Wright Patterson

Air Force Base. He was a visiting professor at the Army War College and then came

back for a tour of duty with the Secretary of the Air Force. Since 1991, he’s been the

Air Force Historian in Washington.

Dick is a great friend of the DFRC [Dryden Flight Research Center]. He’s a

tremendous historian and communicator. He wrote a substantial portion of his book

Supersonic Flight1—which, by the way, is on sale at the gift shop—at the age of 21

for his college thesis.

You know, one of the things that we’re big on here at Dryden is our alliance with

the Air Force Flight Test Center. And it’s been very positive, especially under the

leadership of our Director Ken Szalai, and the leadership of Air Force General

Richard Engel. And both organizations take credit for many, many things. Well, you

know, Dick’s got a lot of time doing work for the Air Force. And I think we ought to

be taking credit for him. So, for starters, I’m going to take credit for him as a NASA

person today.

1

 Richard P. Hallion, Supersonic Flight: Breaking the Sound Barrier and Beyond, the Story of

the Bell X-1 and Douglas D-558 (rev. edn.: London and Washington, DC: Brassey’s, 1997).
2

I could invest another 20 minutes going through a bio on Dick. If you want to

read all the details about where he was born, where he went to school, and everything that he wrote — including 15 books — you can get that off the Internet. Dick,

in short, is a recognized expert on research aircraft — as well, on the air war in the

Persian Gulf. He’s quoted frequently in air power magazines and treatises for use of

air power in the present, and use of air power in future conflicts.

In fact, and this is a true story, his face has become so familiar that there is one

executive producer of TV documentaries — I believe she’s located on the east coast

— who literally begged her staff not to bring in any more scripts with “Hallion”

quoted as the expert. And the line she used was: “Doesn’t anyone else in America

qualify as an expert?” — or words to that effect. So, a true story. He really is an

expert.

Some of the books that he’s written — I know people have seen Test Pilots: The

Frontiersmen of Flight2 and the very famous On the Frontier: Flight Research at

Dryden, 1946-1981.3 Dick is going to set the context for our forum today. And he

will take you through the rest of the afternoon, introducing our speakers. And now

it’s time to sit back before lunch and enjoy a piece of living history, “The Skyrocket

D-558 Program — The X-Planes That Weren’t.” And we’re going to learn why that

is.

Welcome, Dick Hallion. [Audience applause]

HALLION: After an introduction like that, you can only go down. So it’s with some

foreboding that I approach the podium here.

It’s a real pleasure to get back here. I’ve always enjoyed my personal association

with Dryden. And I think it’s very fitting today that we’re here to commemorate what

was an extraordinarily productive research aircraft program — the D-558 program,

which historically is not necessarily as well appreciated as it should be. The D-558

aircraft were remarkable airplanes. They were intended originally for research in the

transonic regime. And you had then one of the variants, the D-558-2, actually go out

and make the first Mach 2 flight. How that occurred we’ll be hearing about in some

detail later from our panelists.

But first, let me discuss the context in which the D-558 program began. If you

take a look at the history of aviation, you see that in mid-century we had two great

revolutions. One of those was the turbojet revolution, which promised the ability to

fly beyond 500 miles an hour. But at the very same time we had this promise, we had

some very acute problems. We had some deficits in our aerodynamic knowledge,

caused largely because of deficiencies in the state of wind-tunnel development and

wind-tunnel testing. And so the second great revolution that comes along then is the

flight research revolution, which basically is the reason why we have the whole

transonic and supersonic flight breakthrough coming out of that.

This revolution has its origins as early as the 1920s really, when people start

studying the phenomena of the airflow changes around propellers. And then it gets

applied to fixed-wing aircraft in the 1930s. Because by the mid-1930s, we were

starting to see accidents caused to experimental high-performance fighters. The first

one which seems to have experienced this was the Messerschmitt Bf 109 in 1937,

2

 (rev. ed.; Washington, DC: Smithsonian Institution Press, 1988).

3

 (Washington, DC: NASA SP-4303, 1984).
3

which had an accident due to so-called compressibility effects.4

And then of course in this country very quickly we see this with the P-38,

starting in 1941. And there’s a tremendous acceleration of interest with World War II

to try to close this transonic gap — this gap between Mach .75 and roughly Mach

1.2 — to find out what’s taking place here. And although there were many different

shortcut research methods developed, and although there was a tremendous stimulus

for wind-tunnel research here, the real solution that people approached — largely

within the National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics (NACA), and then within

both the United States Army Air Forces and the United States Navy — was the idea

to develop transonic and supersonic research airplanes. And out of that comes both

the Army Air Force’s program, which leads to the Bell XS-1, and then a Navysponsored program — the Douglas D-558.

Against this background, we have, early on, some tremendous national security

needs. We’re going from the World War II time period to a cold war time period. We

recognize that there’s a tremendous challenge to this country in terms of technological development, because we’re locked head-to-head with the Soviet Union. And

that’s obviously going to be a very long confrontation. So there’s a very strong desire

and a very strong need here to master this whole field. And it’s these aircraft that

really contribute in a very great way to doing that.

Our first subject is the D-558-1 Skystreak. How did this program come about?

There’s a tremendous number of similarities in the way that the D-558 program as a

whole came about, and the way the X-1 program came about. Both of them grew out

of a need for a transonic research airplane. The National Advisory Committee for

Aeronautics was very keen on developing some sort of aircraft, vaguely determined

and relatively unspecified in terms of specific details, that could undertake transonic

and low supersonic flight testing, and thereby address some of the problems that

existed in the mid-1940s with the absence of available wind-tunnel technology to do

reliable transonic testing.

There were two schools of thought. One of these favored a rocket-propelled

airplane. That view was generally expressed by the Army Air Forces. And that

climate of thinking resulted in the Bell XS-1. And the other school of thought

favored higher-duration turbojet-powered aircraft. That was very much more in line

with thinking expressed by NACA engineers, such as the legendary John Stack of

Langley Laboratory. And out of this thinking came the D-558 program.

The two programs complemented each other extremely well. The XS-1 could

reach high Mach numbers relatively quickly, of course, but had very little duration.

The D-558 program could loiter, if you will, in the transonic regime, and collect a

tremendous amount of data. What’s very interesting in both cases is that there were

key individuals in the services who played a major role in getting these programs

going. For the Army Air Forces, Major Ezra Kotcher at Wright Field acted as the

stimulus within the Army Air Forces to push this proposal. Within the United States

Marine Corps, working for the Navy Bureau of Aeronautics, Lieutenant Abraham

Hyatt drew up a specification for a transonic research airplane in late 1944.

And then also reflecting what happened in the X-1 program, you now had a

requirement for a key industrial figure to become aware of what was going on, and to

express corporate interest in developing such an aircraft. Well, in the case of the X-1,

4

 Increased density, a sharp rise in drag, and disturbed airflow at speeds approaching that of

sound (Mach 1).
4

it was when Robert Woods, a Bell engineer, visited Wright Field in December of

1944, met with his old buddy Ezra Kotcher — and out of that came the X-1 program.

And in the case of the D-558, it was an equivalent visit by a Douglas engineer named

L. Eugene Root, who visited a buddy of his at the Bureau of Aeronautics named

Commander Emerson Conlon — and with Conlon, became aware of the Hyatt

specification. And as Root later said, he “grabbed it, and ran with it,”5 and took it

back to Douglas.

Now as those planes came along in early 1945, both committed to being

straight-wing designs — different in configuration, but, nevertheless, straight-wing

airplanes. There was a great deal of rising interest in the swept wing which, in this

country, had been developed by Robert Jones at Langley, based on some work in

industry that he had picked up on and elaborated from. And then, when we had the

discovery in the rubble of Nazi Germany, of the Germans’ tremendous interest in

swept wings — which dated actually to the 1930s — that accelerated this kind of

interest.

Both Bell and Douglas looked at swept-wing derivatives of their airplanes. In

the case of Bell, they tried to put a swept wing in the X-1, decided it wouldn’t work,

and launched the X-2 program. In the case of Douglas, the firm simply had a slightly

better situation. Its contract was for six airplanes. And the last three of those airplanes would have had differing wing configurations, in terms of thickness/chord

ratio and aspect ratio.6 And Douglas and the Navy got together and basically decided

to take those last three airplanes and make them overtly swept-wing. And although

you had this D-558 designation, in terms of actual design continuity between them,

R. G. Smith watercolor showing cutaway view of the D-558-1 Skystreak (photograph provided by

Tony Landis and reprinted with the permission of Boeing, of which the former Douglas Aircraft

Corporation is now a part).

5

 Quoted in Hallion, Supersonic Flight, p. 64, from a letter and recording Root sent to Hallion.

6

 The chord is the distance between the leading and trailing edges of an airfoil (the wing, in

this case). Aspect ratio relates the span (distance from root to tip) of an airfoil to its area. A

wing with high aspect ratio is long and slender; one with low aspect ratio is short and stubby.
5

they were really very different airplanes, as you can tell simply by looking at them.

But the comparison would be the X-1 and the X-2 as basically representing that same

philosophy for the Air Force-sponsored projects, and then of course the Navysponsored D-558-1 and -2 separately.7

So Douglas very quickly undertook design of a transonic research airplane, the

idea being here to develop an aircraft that would use the sky as the laboratory. And

one of the project engineers, A.M.O. Smith — project aerodynamicist — said their

The D-558-1 Skystreak under construction (photograph provided by Tony Landis).

7

 The three D-558-1 Skystreaks bore Bureau Numbers 37970 to 37972 and NACA “tail”

numbers 140 to 142; the respective bureau and tail numbers for the three D-558-2 Skyrockets

were 37973 to 37975 and 143 to 145.
6

task was basically to build the smallest airplane we could, wrapped around the

largest airplane engine they could find. The painting by R.G. Smith [page 4], who

was also a member of the Douglas design team and is now very well known as an

aviation artist, really indicates to a very great degree what was meant by that.

You see here an aircraft that is indeed very tiny. It was quite cramped inside for

the pilot. And it was literally packed with instrumentation. You had a wet wing to

carry the fuel of the aircraft. You had specially designed, very thin wheels to retract

within the wing. You could not use a conventional wheel arrangement. The wheels

and tires had to be specially developed. And then, of course, you had the dominating

feature, if you will — this very highly refined body-of-revolution type shape that

indeed earned the airplane the nickname “flying test tube” — wrapped around this

TG-180 engine.

The cockpit of the D-558-1 showing how it opened. (NASA photo E49-86).

The D-558-1 in flight in the late summer of 1947 (photo provided by Tony Landis).
The airplane was made primarily of aluminum, in terms of the wings and tail

surfaces. The fuselage was constructed of aluminum framing, covered with magnesium sheeting. It carried 634 pounds of instruments, and had 400 pressure orifices

buried within the wing — which was no mean feat in terms of building the wing at

that time. The wing section was a NACA 65 section airfoil, 10 percent

thickness:chord ratio. This tracked very much later with the number two XS-1 that

was flown by the NACA, and which formed the basis for the X-1E, which is out

here, of course, and which had itself a 10 percent thickness:chord ratio wing.8

The D-558 contract was an interesting contract. It specified six airplanes, for a

total program price of $6,888,444.80. I don’t know where they got the eighty cents.

Now when you translate that into today’s dollars, that’s sixty-two million dollars

which, for six research airplanes, I think we’d all agree is pretty much a bargainbasement price.

There was an intention to take the last three aircraft and to experiment with

wings of varying aspect ratio and varying thickness:chord ratios. Ultimately, of

course, those three aircraft were not built. Instead, that portion of the contract was set

aside for the D-558-2. The original aircraft performance specification [for the D-558-

1] was Mach .82 at sea level, corresponding to 625 miles per hour. And there was an

18 G ultimate load factor stipulated for the aircraft, which was the same load factor

stipulated for the X-1.

There were two mock-up conferences on the airplane in July 1945 and August

1945. In August 1945 the program branched. And we got the substitution for the last

three aircraft of a new swept-wing vehicle, the D-558-2. I will defer discussing the

D-558-2 until this afternoon.

The first flight of the D-558-1 was on 14 April 1947 by Douglas test pilot Gene

May. I have a photo here [page 5] that shows the aircraft under construction. I call

your attention to the monocoque construction,9 how the airplane came together. The

number one airplane was the one that first flew in 1947. The number two airplane,

which was the first NACA aircraft, was unfortunately the one in which Howard

“Tick” Lilly died.

The number one airplane about the time of its first flight was a scarlet aircraft,

nicknamed “the crimson test tube.” You see how the cockpit opened on the aircraft.

Now the program moved very, very rapidly. In August 1947, flying both the

number one and the number two airplanes, we had two official world airspeed

records set in this aircraft. These broke a British record of 615 miles per hour that

had been set earlier by Group Captain E.M. Donaldson in a Meteor.10 The D-558-1

set initially a record of 640.663 miles per hour, flown by Commander Turner

Caldwell. These were low altitude record runs, and then on 25 August 1947 — five

days later — Marine Major Marion Carl reached 650.796 miles per hour.

Just as in June 1947 you had had a major research program outline developed

for the X-1, split between the Army Air Forces and the NACA, in November 1947

8

 That is, the XS-1 number two had a ten percent thickness:chord ratio. The X-1E had a four

percent thickness:chord ratio for its wings.

9

 A type of construction in which most of the stresses are carried by the covering or skin.

10 Actually, as Hallion relates in Supersonic Flight, p. 141, there had been an intermediate

record of 623.738 mph set by Army Air Forces Col. Albert Boyd in a P-80 on 19 June 1947.

7
you had the same research directive come forth. Basically, Douglas would keep the

number one airplane for its own purposes, and the NACA would get the number two

and the number three airplanes.

In the latter part of the month, at the end of November 1947, we had the first

NACA flight of the number two D-558-1 flown by Howard Lilly. Winter rains —

which, of course, are no surprise given what we’ve had recently — winter rains

closed the lakebed, and the plane did not resume flying until the following spring.

Unfortunately on its nineteenth flight, on 3 May 1948, Lilly was killed when the

compressor section of the TG-180 engine — the J35 engine11 — disintegrated,

severing flight control lines. The plane rolled inverted right after takeoff, and dove

into the ground.

This caused Douglas to make extensive mods on the airplane, and indeed greatly

influenced the subsequent history of the research aircraft program for the NACA in

general — in that it put a great deal of emphasis upon ensuring that these research

airplanes had such things as armoring of flight control systems that were designed to

have significantly better safety characteristics than had been thought possible at that

time. At the time of his death, Lilly was the first NACA pilot who had been killed in

the line of duty.

In April 1949 we had the program resume, using the number three D-558-1. It

was flown by Bob Champine, whom we’re fortunate to have with us today. We can

take a look at a couple of photos here. We have the classic red Skystreak shown here

with Gene May. And despite that red color, it turned out that it was actually quite

invisible at high altitudes. So there was a desire to repaint the airplane white to

facilitate optical tracking. And, indeed, white became the standard color for the

NACA research airplane fleet. Some portions — the flight control surfaces of the D558-1 — were retained in red, the reason being that the flight control surfaces were

extremely intolerant to changes in their overall weight and dynamic characteristics

from having paint added to them. And they had to be left in red, lest there be the

possibility for flight control surface flutter problems.

Pilots Eugene F. May and Howard C. “Tick” Lilly (viewer’s left to right) beside Douglas D-558-1

Skystreak number two, the one in which Lilly died. In this photograph, the Skystreak is painted

bright red. (NASA photo E95-43116-8).

11 The Allison J35-A-11 had originally been developed by General Electric as the TG-180.

8
This head-on shot shows how you had a bifurcation in the inlet. If you take a

look at the inlet, obviously it splits then and goes around the pilot. So that even

though you have what looks like a nice roomy circle of cross-section fuselage — the

actual little capsule, if you will, that the pilot fits in is really quite narrow.

The airplane had some interesting construction approaches for its time. It had

aluminum framing for the fuselage, covered with magnesium sheeting. And then it

had aluminum wing and tail surfaces. And even more interestingly, you had those

400 orifices cut into that wing for pressure distribution measurements. When you

think about the standards of construction for that airplane at the time, it was really

kind of a tribute to Ed Heinemann’s design team12 that it was able to do that as well

as it did. It was really extraordinary.

To increase mission endurance, the plane was flown with tip tanks. And we have

here just sort of “the sweet nostalgia of the never-to-be-forgotten moment.” We have

a nice little photograph here [page 10] showing the airplane in its classic NACA

markings in white — the number three D-558-1 cruising right along on one of its

transonic research missions.

What did the test flights show on this program? Basically, the D-558-1 configuration exhibited a marked increase in wheel force for trim, as Mach number went

from about 0.82 to 0.87. It went from about five pounds push to about 30 pounds

push [depending upon the incidence of the movable horizontal stabilizer13]. Lateral

Head-on view of the D-558-1 showing the bifurcation in the engine inlet, forcing the intake air to

go on either side of the pilot. (NASA photo E49-89).

12 Edward H. Heinemann was the chief engineer with the Douglas Aircraft Corporation who

headed the design team for the D-558-1 and D-558-2. See Hallion, Supersonic Flight, esp. pp.

63-5, 167.

13 See Melvin Sadoff, William S. Roden, and John M. Eggleston, Flight Investigation of the

Longitudinal Stability and Control Characteristics of the Douglas D-558-1 Airplane

(BUAERO No. 37972) at Mach Numbers up to 0.89 (Washington, D.C.: NACA Research

Memorandum L51D18, 1951), esp. pp. 1, 6-7, 18. Thanks to Ed Saltzman for calling this

source to my attention and interpreting it.

9
stability deteriorated over the same speed range, and there was pronounced wing

dropping experience with this aircraft above Mach 0.84.

The NACA was very interested in this and, as a result, undertook many studies

here of lateral, longitudinal, and dynamic stability characteristics of the aircraft. One

of the most distinctive things added to the airplane was a series of vortex generators,

for which Boeing should forever give thanks, employed to stabilize air flow. They

worked very well. They were adapted subsequently for a whole range of aircraft —

the B-47, the B-52 which had great rows of them, the KC-135, on to the 707 family,

up to the 757, 767, and 777 of the present day and, for that matter, the Douglas A-4

as well. And this became sort of a hallmark, as a quick fix of the early supersonic and

transonic era.

There was an extensive longitudinal stability research program flown with the

D-558-1 number three airplane in 1950 and 1951. And then that was followed in

1952 by an equally extensive lateral stability investigation. The longitudinal stability

program consisted primarily of abrupt pull-ups. The lateral stability program

consisted of taking data during abrupt rolls. And then there was a brief dynamic

stability program undertaken in the program in 1953, consisting primarily of elevator

and rudder pulses before the aircraft was relegated basically to use as a test pilot

trainer. It finally made its last flight on 10 June 1953. And it was returned to the

United States Navy in dead storage in 1954.

It’s very interesting to take a look at the D-558-1, as distinct from the -2

airplane, because it was playing Avis, if you will, to the X-1’s Hertz. But at the same

time, this airplane — as Scott Crossfield and others have pointed out — was absolutely critical to giving us a thorough understanding of what was happening in the

transonic regime. It’s also very interesting to me, taking a look at both programs —

the -1 and the -2 — to compare the tremendous success we had with these relatively

complex aircraft and to contrast that with what was happening in Europe at the same

time where you had, indeed, a whole series of false starts, dashed hopes, dashed

D-558-1 in flight on one of its transonic research missions. (NASA photo E-713).

10
expectations of whole families of research airplanes that were being developed in

Great Britain, in France, and elsewhere — where there were tremendous national

resources and industrial resources going into these. And the programs were not going

along at anywhere near the pace that they should.

We’ll certainly hear a lot more from our guests this afternoon when we resume

the conference. But I would hold that one of the key things in making the American

program a success was not merely the design of the airplanes — because the airplanes were very well thought out and extremely well crafted — which, as I’ve said,

is a tremendous tribute to the design team headed by Ed Heinemann at Douglas, but I

think also a tremendous tribute to the NACA here at Muroc, which was then the

High-Speed Flight Research Station headed by Walt Williams.

And Walt Williams, of course, is a name that’s not unfamiliar, certainly, to

people in this audience.14 But it’s well worth mentioning, again, that in my view,

Walt Williams was probably the finest flight test researcher and research director that

this country produced. His impact and his imprint was on every major aerospace

revolution, literally going from the transonic era of the late 1940s all the way through

the landing on the moon in 1969 and beyond.

We have a number of people who will be receiving due mention and deserved

mention today, and I would think that it’s very fitting that the first of those that we

single out for special mention is the late Walter C. Williams who, of course, loved

this Center with the same intensity and passion that he brought to the love of aviation

in general.

I would also like to point out that the very fine audiovisual materials which

you’ll be seeing today have been pulled together, particularly in the case of the

photos that I’m using, from the photo archives here at Dryden, which is a unique

historical resource. And we have Tony Landis to thank for that. And I appreciate

Tony’s doing that very much.

And I would also like to mention that in addition to the very distinguished guests

we have here today who flew the aircraft and who maintained the aircraft, we have a

member, indeed, from the Douglas design team — who worked on this aircraft —

Charlie Delavan. And Charlie, if you’d stand up — I’d like you to take a bow.

Because [audience applause] without people like Charlie, we certainly would not be

able to have this symposium we’re having today.

[BREAK FOR LUNCH]

HALLION: We now come, I think, to the real meat of the program. We’re going to

have presentations by our very distinguished panel of guests. First, two presentations

on the D-558-1. Then we’ll have a discussion on the D-558-2, followed by some

presentations on the D-558-2. So what I’d like to do at this point is to have our

distinguished guests please stand up. Bob Champine and his lovely wife, Gloria;

John Griffith and his wife, Maxine; Stan Butchart; and Scott Crossfield. We’re

14 Williams was the first head of what later became the Dryden Flight Research Center, where

he was instrumental in the successes of the early research aircraft and helped prepare the X-15

program before leaving the High-Speed Flight Station in September 1959 to become Associate

Director of NASA’s newly formed Space Task Group created to carry out Project Mercury.

After serving with the Aerospace Corp. on the Gemini and Titan III vehicles, he joined NASA

Headquarters as Chief Engineer.

11
honored, indeed, gentlemen that you’re here today. I also want to recognize in the

audience Donna Termeer, who’s here from Assemblyman George Runner’s office.

Donna, welcome to the session. We’re delighted to have you with us today.

If we take a look at visual images of the D-558-1 and D-558-2 [scattered

throughout this volume], we see how evocative these aircraft were, and you think

that there’s a revolution taking place in aviation at this time. We’re seeing a radical

transformation literally, from the era of propeller-driven airplane to the era of the

supersonic jet aircraft. They had a certain beauty, I think, that was all their own, and

frankly, the shapes were extremely evocative. I think when you look at something

like an F-86 or the D-558-2, that we haven’t developed any aircraft since that time

that really had that same degree of elegance. There was something there that I think

resonates very deeply with us.

As I said earlier, we’re very honored to have the individuals who actually flew

these aircraft with us today. We’ll start first with recognition of two individuals who

played a major role in the D-558 program — Bob Champine and John Griffith.

These individuals — both of them — had very distinguished flying careers.

Bob Champine graduated from the University of Minnesota in 1943 with a

bachelor’s degree in aeronautical engineering, went through the civilian pilot training

program, and became a naval aviator. After leaving active duty in 1947, he joined the

staff of the NACA’s Langley Memorial Aeronautical Laboratory at Hampton,

Virginia. He did a lot of work there on an airplane that’s a relative rarity — people

Walt Williams, Scott Crossfield, and Joe Vensel, Flight Operations Manager, (viewer’s left to

right) beside the D-558-2 on November 20, 1953, the day Crossfield exceeded Mach 2. (NASA

photo E-1097).

12
don’t think of it too much — the Bell L-39, which was a swept-wing variant of the P63 Kingcobra. Despite that “39,” it had no relationship to the P-39. It was a very

important low-speed, swept-wing test bed, for a number of swept-wing aircraft,

including the F-86, the D-558-2, and the Bell X-2. He was transferred out to

Edwards in October 1948, did early research flying on both the X-1 and the D-558

program, went back to Langley, did a tremendous amount of work at Langley

through the years on a whole range of aircraft, from high performance airplanes

through vertical take-off and landing aircraft. Bob became Langley’s Senior Test

Pilot and retired in January 1979, two days after making his last research flight at

NASA’s Wallops facility in a CH-47 helicopter. A 31-year career. An utterly distinguished gentleman.

The other individual who’s here today is equally distinguished — John Griffith.

John undertook some studies at Thornton Township Junior College in Harvey,

Illinois, graduating as valedictorian in pre-engineering. He went into the Army Air

Forces in November 1941, served in the war in the South Pacific, and flew 189

missions in New Guinea in some very tough times, under some very daunting

conditions. He was awarded two Distinguished Flying Crosses and four air medals

for service in New Guinea. He left the service in October 1946, went back to study

aeronautical engineering at Purdue University, and graduated with honors in aeronautical engineering from that university. He then joined the NACA at Cleveland,

where he did some very interesting work in early ramjet testing. That was one of

Cleveland’s big projects in those days. Some icing research work — something else

they were very well known for.15 Then, of course, he came out here in August of

1949 and flew in the early X-series aircraft — the X-1, the X-4, the D-558 program.

He left the NACA in 1950, joined Chance Vought, and worked there for a period of

time doing experimental flight tests on the F7U Cutlass, had a career with United

Airlines, with Westinghouse as the Chief Engineering Test Pilot, and a six-year

career with the FAA doing a lot of work assisting in the attempt to develop the first

supersonic transport. He had a second tour of duty as a flight instructor with United

and flew the line with them for about seven years. We’re very fortunate to have John

here as well.16

These individuals — and certainly when we talk about Stan and Scott later —

you’ll see that these were very tough individuals. They were tough individuals

dealing with very difficult times. They did very well, and have continued to do so.

To give you an example, Bob here — hale and hearty as he looks — Bob is

recovering from a stroke — fortunately mild. He had it two months ago. He’s made a

remarkable comeback. As a result, Bob doesn’t feel terribly comfortable at times

speaking. And so, Bob, I’d like you to stand and once again be recognized by our

audience. He’s left a very fine written memoir that he prepared for this conference.

But he’s discussed this with John, and John will be handling Bob’s portion of the

discussion here on the D-558.

So at this point, Bob, I’d like you and John to stand up. And, John, you can

15 The NACA’s laboratory in Cleveland, established in 1941 and renamed in honor of George

W. Lewis, NACA Director of Aeronautical Research from 1924 to 1947, in 1948, participated

substantially in the NACA’s studies of aircraft icing in this period.

16 These introductions include elements from Ed Schneider’s introductions the previous night

and additions by John Griffith.

13
come forward to the podium. [Audience applause]

GRIFFITH: This is a paper that Bob and his wife have prepared. And I will read it

as written here:

Good afternoon. I’m happy to be with you today. I thank Mr. Kenneth Szalai,

Center Director, and Mr. Cam Martin of External Affairs for inviting us to Dryden,

particularly to be with my fellow aviators John Griffith, Scott Crossfield, Stan

Butchart, Ed Schneider, and our good friend Dr. Richard Hallion, without whose

dedicated research effort and pilot interviews the detailed history of supersonic flight

would be forever lost. The complete records just do not exist today.

I’m Bob Champine — a kid who grew up in Minneapolis, Minnesota, with my

eyes to the heaven and my heart with wings. I used to ride my bicycle over to World

Chamberlin Airport in Minneapolis to clean out hangars, wash airplanes, and do

whatever I could to be offered just one ride — a ride in an airplane. My first ride was

in a Fleet. I was about 12, and didn’t tell my mother because she might not let me go

to the airport again. I started flying a Piper Cub in the summer of 1939 and soloed in

July 1940. I had to do a lot of sweeping, washing, and polishing airplanes to get that

far. Between my building model airplanes, and competing in model meets —

winning a lot of the time — and time I spent at the airport, I didn’t have a lot of time

for my school studies. I was just an average student.

When I graduated from Roosevelt High School in 1939, I wanted to learn to fly.

But my mother said, “If you like airplanes so much, you need to learn to design

them. I want you to go to college and study to be an aeronautical engineer.” This was

difficult because of my less-than-exceptional grades. After several conferences with

my high school principal and also with the admissions office, I was finally accepted

at the University of Minnesota in the Institute of Technology’s Aeronautical Engineering Program, backed both by my mom and stepfather, Clifford Champine, who

agreed to pay my tuition. I started college that fall. I really had to buckle down and

study, as studying did not come easy to me. It was difficult. But my drive to become

an aeronautical engineer made the difference.

While I was in college, World War II started, and I began primary flight training

under the Naval Civilian Pilot Training Program, and upon graduation in 1943, was

commissioned an ensign in the U.S. Navy. Since I wanted to be a naval aviator, I had

to give up my commission and enroll in the Naval Cadet Program at Pensacola. At

the end of my training, I was commissioned a naval aviator, and my mother pinned

my wings on me in Pensacola. That was a proud day.

In 1947 when my Navy term was up, I was stationed at the Naval Air Base in

Norfolk, Virginia, flying [F4U] Corsairs. Through my studies at the University of

Minnesota, I learned of the outstanding reputation of the National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics, which was just across the river from Norfolk at Hampton,

Virginia. With the approval of my superior in Norfolk, I flew my Corsair over to

NACA, landed in front of the hangar, and rolled up to the large office building

attached to the hangar. I swung the tail around smartly, folded up the Corsair’s

wings, climbed out, and asked, “Who’s the boss here? I would like to talk to him.”

Of course, everyone there was looking out their windows watching me, and I had no

trouble locating the head of the Division, Mr. Mel Gough, and head of the pilots, Mr.

Herbert Hoover. I told them I was coming out of the Navy shortly, and would like to

come to work for NACA Langley Laboratory as a test pilot. I was told to fill out the

14
government forms for employment and they would look at them. The requirement

for a test pilot was 1,000 hours of single-engine and transport flying, and I had only a

little over 900.

Well, they offered me a job as an aeronautical engineer scientist, and I wasn’t

too happy about that. I wanted to be a test pilot, and not a scientist behind a desk. I

told them that if they could not hire me as a research pilot, then I was going to use

my G.I. Bill and go to helicopter school at Sikorsky in Connecticut. After discussions

with Mr. Hoover, Mr. Gough said, “Aw, hell, come on with us as a research pilot and

we’ll teach you to fly helicopters here at Langley.” I accepted.

After receiving my discharge from the Navy, I remained with the Naval Reserve.

I found a room in a home in Hampton, Virginia, and began working at NACA in

December of 1947. Was I thrilled! Langley had many airplanes and helicopters, and I

was just itching to get my hands on the controls. Not long after I was hired, Mr.

Herbert Hoover, my mentor and dear friend, gave me a manual and told me to take it

home; we were flying the B-29 in the morning. This is the way a lot of my training

went: read the manual, and then we would go out flying.

I was just thrilled with the opportunity I had and didn’t realize that my salary

was only about $50.00 a week. I had saved $5,000 in the Navy and bought an old

Ford car, and I was just the happiest soul on earth. Everyone in the Pilot’s Office

knew about a super-secret project that was going on in the California desert at the

time. But I was happy where I was with just the best job in the world. I was a test

pilot with NACA. It doesn’t come any better than that.

In California, the XS-1 aerodynamic research program was continuing. Chuck

Yeager broke the sound barrier in the Air Force XS-1 6062 October 14, 1947, and

Herb Hoover, the second man, broke the sound barrier on March 10, 1948, in the

NACA XS-1 6063.17 Howard Lilly from the NACA Cleveland Laboratory and

Bob Champine and Herb Hoover beside the XS-1. (NASA photo E49-5.

17 The full designations for these two aircraft were 46-062 and 46-063, but they bore the

shortened designations 6062 and 6063 on their tails.

15
Hoover continued with the research program, and on March 31, 1948, Lilly exceeded

Mach 1 on his third XS-1 flight. In May 1948 he was killed on his nineteenth flight

of the D-558-1 number two.

Hoover needed another pilot at Muroc, and quietly approached me about going

out there. I didn’t know at the time that other pilots had been approached and, for

various reasons, turned the assignment down. I was thrilled to say yes, but I had two

conditions: (1) Let me fly all the planes Langley had before I went to California, and

(2) I would return to my job at Langley. I had a ball flying everything in the hangar

at Langley and being under the wing of Herbert Hoover who, behind closed doors at

Langley, gave me critical instruction on the flying qualities of the XS-1 number two,

and on NACA’s aerodynamic research program.

When he decided I was ready, I left Langley and drove my old Ford out to

Muroc in October 1948. Hoover remained at Muroc to train me, and on November 1,

1948, he turned the X-1 over to me. I made my first flight on November 23rd. I

became the sixth [pilot in the XS-1 and D-558 series] to reach Mach 1 December 2,

1948, on my fourth flight.

This table shows research flights that John Griffith and I flew in 1948 through

1950:

 Bob Champine John Griffith

Aircraft NACA Research Pilot NACA Research Pilot

X-1 13 flights 9 flights

X-4 0 flights 3 flights

D-558-1 9 flights 16 flights

D-558-2 12 flights 8 flights

During my X-1 flights, there were a couple of incidents I would like to share

with you. After settling in the X-1 beneath the B-29, I experienced a radio failure

prior to launch. Using my knee pad, I wrote a note on a flight card “secure the drop,”

which, in my Navy lingo, meant stop. The note was passed through the bomb bay to

the Air Force crew on the B-29. They thought everything was secure. They dropped

me! I had to scramble to get the radio working. But I had it fixed and completed the

flight okay.

On another flight, the cockpit camera just over my shoulder broke loose during

the flight, and went slamming around inside the cockpit. I began to jerk the wires out

and stash the camera beneath my leg, but not before it cracked the inner windshield.

As I was attempting to land, the windshield frosted over, and I could not see. I put

my thumb on the windshield, and melted a very small spot. I was able to put my eye

close to it and see well enough to land on the dry lakebed. [Aside by John Griffith:] I

might say that any of you who have seen the X-1 could see that the visibility for

landing was not the best, since they wanted the windscreen to conform to the shape

of a .50 caliber rifle bullet. But sometimes it did frost over, and then the chase plane

would be telling you how high you were, and you hoped that you’d hit the lake at the

right attitude. If you hit the lake with the nose wheel first, the X-1 was out of control,

and there were a lot of people, including myself, who started bouncing along the lake

as a result of the nose wheel hitting first and breaking off. Anyway, to get back to

Bob’s story here:

16
This photo gives you an aerial view of the base, with Rogers Dry Lake in the

center. When we were here, there was a railroad going across. But we still had seven

miles north and south and five miles east and west. Usually when we were landing

the X-1, we’d shoot for about the one-mile marker, and usually didn’t miss it by very

much. [Comment by Griffith:] I think there was one day that Bob was a little low on

the base leg and he said, “Please advise.” And the only advice I could think of was,

“Our Father, who art in heaven.”

Here is a picture of myself, Chuck Yeager, and Herb Hoover. The next is a

picture of Mr. Hoover when he received the Air Force Association Award in 1948 for

Aerial view of what was then (1948-49) called Muroc Air Force Base (now Edwards AFB) and

vicinity. In the center, shaped somewhat like an hourglass, is Rogers Dry Lake (sometimes

referred to as Muroc Dry Lake). (Photograph supplied by Bob Champine, available as NASA

photo EC98-44613-1).

Bob Champine, Chuck Yeager, and Herb Hoover (viewer’s left to right) standing next to an X-1.

(NASA photo EC98-44613-4, originally supplied by Bob Champine).

17
his flight as the first civilian and the second man to break the sound barrier. He also

received the Octave Chanute Award that year.

In the next photo, you can see just how small the X-1 was compared to the B-29

drop plane. Another one lets you see how we entered and exited the aircraft. Once

inside, we were in. No thought of escape; we had to land it. Research flights were of

short duration — maybe about 15 minutes of actual flight time. Then days and

sometimes weeks would pass before there was another flight, and I was anxious for

more flight time. I made good use of my Naval Reserve status, and was assigned my

weekend warrior duty at Los Alamitos, California. Since I didn’t want anyone to

Herb Hoover with his Air Force Association Award in 1948. (NASA photo EC98-44613-7,

originally supplied by Bob Champine).

18
know my actual job at Muroc, I would take the Muroc C-47 and fly it by myself,

would park about a mile away, and walk down the flight line to my assignment as an

ensign in the Naval Reserve. I was able to get a lot of flying time there and had great

fun.

X-1 predominantly flown by NACA pilots next to its B-29 “mothership.” (NASA photo E-9).

Bob Champine exiting the X-1. (NASA photo EC98-44613-2, originally supplied by Bob

Champine).

19
The next photograph shows our X-1 (6063), after it was modified for other

research flights, as it stands today — proudly, in front of the Administration Building

here at Dryden.

During the X-1 period, NACA took delivery of the D-558-1 number one

Skystreak which was relegated to spares support. NACA test pilot Howard Lilly flew

the D-558-1 Skystreak on its first NACA flight in November 1947, about six months

before he was killed after engine failure on takeoff on May 3, 1948. In 1948, the D558-1 Skystreak number three was delivered to NACA, and I made NACA flight one

on April 22, 1949, for pilot familiarization.

The next two photos show the Skystreak on the ground, and then in flight. I

made nine flights in the D-558-1 Skystreak and 12 flights in the D-558-2 Skyrocket,

making NACA flight one on May 24, 1949. The next photo [page 22] shows the

Skyrocket on the ground, taking off with a JATO assist.18

My thirty-two years as a test pilot for NACA/NASA were wonderful times —

from flying the X-1, to spacecraft rendezvous, and simulated landings on the moon. I

had it all. Thank you. [Audience applause]

GRIFFITH: Well, to turn to my own experiences, as Dick said, I grew up in

Homewood, Illinois, near Chicago. And Green Three went very close to our house,

which was one of the early air routes that went from Chicago, to Goshen, to Toledo,

to Cleveland, and to New York. Early in the 1930s, I could see Boeing 247s going

over, and later on the DC-3s. Sometimes when I saw the airplane going over, I would

lie down in the yard, and just lay there and look at it. I thought it would really be a

Original NACA X-1, modified as the X-1E, in front of the Headquarters Building at NASA Dryden.

(NASA photo ECN 12506).

18 JATO is the acronym for jet-assisted take-off; despite the term “jet,” the device assisting the

take-off is actually a small, solid-propellant rocket.

20
great thing to be up there flying that airplane.

The Depression wasn’t too good to me and my family. We lost our home, and I

went to live with my aunt before I finished junior college. But I was valedictorian of

my class in the junior college after two years. At that point, I took my physical, and

was accepted in the Army Air Corps. It almost turned me down because I had

malocclusion [of the upper and lower teeth]. I never could figure out how that was

going to affect how I could fly an airplane, but anyway, they could see the war

coming. I think they were taking everybody that was really in physical condition, and

Bob Champine next to the D-558-1. (NASA photo EC98-44613-5, originally supplied by Bob

Champine).

D-558-1 in flight, still painted its original bright red color. (NASA photo EC98-44613-3, originally

supplied by Bob Champine).

21
had the eyesight, and depth perception, and things like that to get in the program.

As Dick said, I went to New Guinea. I was in the Army Air Corps [and Army

Air Forces] for five years, getting out in 1946. In the spring of 1946, Aviation Week

and some of the other magazines I was reading were talking about the X-1, and the

glide flights they were making in Florida.19 Eventually it got to the point where the

news was out that [Chalmers] “Slick” Goodlin was asking for quite a large sum of

money to fly supersonically with the airplane.20

So I wrote a letter to Bell Aircraft. I said I was an honor student in the third year

of aeronautical engineering at Purdue, had 1,200 [flying] hours, 189 combat missions, and had done a lot of flying with fighters — and that I’d like to come and fly

the Bell X-1. After I was flying the X-1 for the NACA, we went to the [variablesweep] X-5 mock-up at Bell. I talked to some people who said there were quite a few

individuals who had written in and said that they would like to fly the X-1. I don’t

know whether they were interested in the money, or whether they just wanted to fly

the airplane. Scott Crossfield said he just wanted to fly the airplane. I think he wrote

a letter, too.

Well anyway, I graduated from Purdue, and people came to interview us for a

job. In 1948, the average engineer starting salary was about $250.00 a month. I

interviewed with Ed Gough, who was Mel Gough’s brother, and another engineer

D-558-2 taking off with jet assisted take-off (JATO). (NASA photo E49-219).

19 The first glide flights occurred at Pinecastle Field, Fla., before the project moved to Muroc

Army Air Field (later Edwards Air Force Base).

20 In fact, the story was perhaps somewhat exaggerated; Goodlin’s contract arrangements with

Bell were consistent with then-industry practices. See Louis Rotundo, Into the Unknown: The

X-1 Story (Washington, DC and London: The Smithsonian Institution Press, 1994), pp. 126,

226-230.

22
who came down from the [NACA’s] Lewis Lab [in Cleveland], and they accepted

me. They were going to pay me $3,727 a year. That turned out to be about $140

every two weeks, which we got along with all right. It only cost 27 cents for a T-bone

steak, so the salary was commensurate with what things cost.

I was in icing research in Cleveland. I don’t think we want to spend a lot of time

with that. I do remember we flew the B-24 once with enough ice on it that the

propellers were rubbing the ice on the engine cowlings! The post or the support for

the air speed indicator was underneath the airplane, and the ice was sticking out far

enough on the support that even with the pitot heat on, the ice went around a little bit

in front of the pitot tube. We [had to fly] the Instrument Landing System using pitch

attitude rather than air speed to get back in at Cleveland.

Well, they had an opening here at Edwards, and I said I wanted to fill it. So I

went to Langley and flew a lot of the airplanes that Bob talked about. The L-39 was

the first airplane I ever flew in which you could push on the left rudder and the

airplane would roll right, which took a little bit of getting used to.

Another airplane they had at Langley that was interesting was the [North

American] P-51 [Mustang]. In a compartment on the right wing, they had set up a

balance. There were airfoil models that could be put out into the wind stream. And

when the P-51 was going 0.75 Mach number, the [accelerated] air over the top of the

wing was going Mach 1.2. So they were getting transonic and supersonic lift, drag,

and pitch characteristics of various airfoils with this model on the wing out there.

This gave a little bit of feeling for what had happened to a lot of the Army Air Corps

pilots that were in the P-51s and the P-38s. A fair number got into dives that they

didn’t pull out of. In the P-51, you could be pushing 40 pounds [stick force] at 0.7

Mach number. At Mach 0.72 it was almost neutral. By Mach 0.76 you had 160

pounds force on the stick, and you might or might not be decreasing the angle of the

dive with that 160 pounds. Some pilots went on in the steeper dives and tried to trim

out of it. When the air got a little denser, and the temperature went up, and the Mach

number dropped off, they had [sufficient] trim in the airplane to pull the wings off.

So there were a lot of unknowns that happened in the transonic speed range.

When I was in New Guinea, we had a pilot that was in our [Curtiss] P-40

[Warhawk] squadron and had an opportunity to get with a [Lockheed] P-38 photoreconnaissance squadron that was just across the river from where we were. He ate

lunch with us one day and said, “I don’t think this P-38 talk is really anything

serious.” He said, “I’m going to go up this afternoon and really dive one.” Well, later

on that afternoon we saw him coming down. From the point where we first saw him

‘til he hit the ground, he went into a steeper dive. I don’t understand why he didn’t

pull the throttles back. He buried the engines about 30 feet in the ground. So it was

pretty obvious that when you went into the transonic speed range, the center of lift

on the wing moved aft, and that made the nose go down.

I got a P-40 up to about 32,000 feet and came straight down, and I first experienced a stick that felt like it was cast in about two feet of concrete. It just doesn’t

move back until you get a little denser air, and the drag increases, and the temperature goes up a little bit, and the Mach number comes back. If you throttle back, it’s

easy enough to pull the airplane out. This experience went on with quite a few people

that flew P-51s and P-38s. Lockheed eventually put a flap underneath the front of the

wing, so that if you got into that kind of trouble, you could open that flap and pull

23
out.

But we got to Edwards here and started the Skystreak program. As Dick said, it

was a beautiful airplane and really a lot of fun to fly. We were doing a lot of flying

between 0.8 and 1.0 Mach number. Quite a few of the flights that I was on were very

close to Mach 1. As a matter of fact, one of Dick’s flight numbers shows me going to

Mach 0.98-1.0. We were measuring the pitch characteristics, and, of course, the

pressure distribution over the wing, and all the stability and control aspects of flying

through Mach 0.80 to 0.99 — which was giving a lot of information that was pretty

much needed to keep these airplanes out of trouble when they got going in that speed

range.

So this was a pretty first-hand experience to indicate that there was some reason

that we really needed to get into these transonic research airplanes and determine

what it was about the airplanes that we were flying that would enable them to fly

safely at transonic speed and into supersonic speed.

There are so many things that can happen when you start getting into the

transonic speed range — especially instability of the airflow. The normal lift distribution peaks near the front of the wing. That breaks down and moves aft as local

Mach 1 speeds are reached and that makes the airplane pitch down. And then there

are other characteristics on some of the airplanes that might cause it to pitch up.

One of the flights that I made with the D-558-2 was a series of pull-ups at 200-

240 knots. Anyway, in a pull-up, when the airplane got to a pitch-up angle of attack,21

it would be interesting to see the position of the horizontal tail in the wing wake in a

pitch-up. I expect that when the pitch attitude of the airplane was such that the

downwash from the wing went over the horizontal tail, it pitched up quite sharply.

Well, at 220-240 knots, it wasn’t too bad. But at maybe 280 knots, when I hit that

point, without my doing anything except pushing against the stick, the airplane

pitched up to a stall and a snap roll. I had done a lot of snap rolls in my life. It

wasn’t any problem to pull out of a snap roll, but quite a surprise to be doing a pullup, and all of a sudden the airplane’s going out of control.22

I guess you all know that in those days, most of our data was on an oscillograph23 that was about this wide [holds hands slightly apart]. And the distance from

the baseline to the location of the parameter was an indication of your speed, or

altitude, or stick force, or G force [acceleration equal to the force of gravity or a

multiple thereof], or all the various things that we were measuring. Sig Sjoberg24 told

me when I was going to do this stall that was on the flight plan, “We’d like to see

21 The angle of attack (AoA) is the relationship of the aircraft to the relative wind. At a 45°

AoA, the aircraft is pointing 45° above the airstream.

22 Pitch up was violent at high speeds but was much milder at moderate speeds and not

noticeable at approach-to-stall speed.

23 In the early years, an oscillograph recording system collected flight data on film for

processing by female “computers” into usable engineering data. In 1967 a more sophisticated

pulse code modulation system replaced the oscillograph. See Sheryll Goecke Powers, Women

in Flight Research at NASA Dryden Flight Research Center from 1946 to 1995 (Washington,

DC: NASA Monographs in Aerospace History #6, 1997), esp. pp. 12-14, 45-49.

24 An engineer at the NACA High-Speed Flight Station (later NASA Dryden Flight Research

Center).

24
what happens with this airplane when we have the gear and the flaps down, and

we’re at the end point of the stall approach.”

Well, this data point was a little late in the flight, and I had gotten down to about

14,000 feet. The airplane never would go real high with just the jet engine. But

anyway, I got the gear and flaps down, slowly approached a stall, and pretty soon I

felt like things were getting pretty loose with this machine but no pitch-up was

noticeable. I thought: well, Sig wants it really slow, so we’ll keep on coming back

here. So I came on back to the point where the right wing dropped and the airplane

started yawing to the right. I thought it was about time to stop this and recover. But it

did maybe a turn of a spin. The airplane spin recovery characteristics were unsatisfactory with the gear and the flaps down, so as I was rolling into this wing dropping

and yawing, I was putting the gear and flaps up. I knew it wasn’t going to be long

until I was going to be going quite a bit faster than I was going then. But I got the

nose down, and got a little speed up. And as soon as I had the nose down and the

speed up, why the airplane was flying — but I was in a very nearly vertical position.

I later checked the telemetering data, and determined that I did the stall at

14,000 and pulled out at 7,000 feet. Well, the lakebed was at 2,400 feet. I think from

then on, if I was going to do any stalls, I’d be at 20,000 feet. Walt Williams was

watching this from the lake. They drove the car out to be somewhere near where I

stopped when I landed. And he was looking at it with his field glasses. When it slid

off into the spin, he handed the glasses to Joe Vensel25 and he said, “Here — you

look!”

Another point about the D-558-1: I think the wing on the D-558-1 was about

150 square feet. And that made the stall speed a little high in some cases. I know that

I was doing a clean configuration stall according to the flight plan. And I felt pretty

good at 150 [knots] indicated [airspeed]. At about 149, why I had dropped 1,000 feet.

And so things quit all of a sudden. As far as the high speed part of it was concerned, I

flew I know at least three or four flights that went above Mach 0.97. We did several

runs from a lower speed to that high nine-tenths with different stabilizer settings.

And this gave us a pretty good indication of some of this tucking that I was talking

about that went on with the P-38 and the P-51. However, I do remember some

buffeting and some trim changes, and things like that. But I felt like it was really a

pretty good airplane to fly up to near Mach 1. And I enjoyed flying the airplane. I

thought it was a lot of fun.

I can’t really think of any more things that are directly tied into the D-558

program. I do know that, as Dick said, in the X-1 it was a short shot. You’d get to

50,000 feet, and start down with four rockets, and maybe get up to Mach 1.2 at the

most. And near the end of that time, we’d do a roll or a pull-up, or some kind of

maneuver that would give them a little more information about handling qualities at

those speeds. And it was not a very long time. Soon as the fuel was gone, you

jettisoned the residue. Then it was a no-power flight to the lake.

They were going to have a movie called Jet Pilot, and X-1 number one was

25 A distinguished NACA and Navy pilot, Joe Vensel transferred from the NACA’s Aircraft

Engine Research Laboratory in Cleveland, Ohio (later NASA’s Lewis Research Center), to the

not yet officially named NACA Muroc Flight Test Unit (later NASA’s Dryden Flight Research

Center) as Chief of Flight Operations in April 1947. He remained in the position until his

retirement in December 1966.

25
going to be used for that. The crew came up from Los Angeles — the movie crew.

They were painting the airplane, and they had some talk about people’s salaries. I

heard the salaries these guys were making in the movie crew, and it was more than I

was making. I thought: if I’m going to be up here flying this X-1, I ought to get a

little more money.

And I really don’t know why. But it was just a few days after that that J.R. Clark

came from Chance Vought. And he offered me a job that paid almost twice the salary,

and with the bonus program, I could maybe earn four times the salary I was making.

What he didn’t tell me was that in the various X models of the F7U Cutlass, they

crashed five airplanes and killed three pilots.26 I didn’t know that when I went to

work for Chance Vought. But when I got there, from some of the flying that I did, I

found out why. I worked for them for a year, and I figured I’d like to see my kids

graduate from high school. So I went to work for the airlines.

I do think I probably have time to talk about one episode with this Chance

Vought Cutlass that ties into the “tuck” problem that we had with the P-38 and the P51. The F7U-1 was built with a hydraulic power control system. And if you had lost

complete hydraulic power, they had a spring tab system as a backup. It was a

mechanical system that could be used to recover the airplane if you lost all your

hydraulic pressure. The airplane would fly quite well on the spring tab system if you

weren’t going fast.

So this was the bonus program I was on. I was supposed to see how fast the

airplane could go and still be recovered with the hydraulic control system shut off. I

made several practice runs where I shut off the hydraulic control system, but I didn’t

shut off the hydraulic power that opened the speed brakes. On the day that I was

working for this bonus program, there was going to be a complete hydraulic failure,

and I was going to have to open the speed brakes with a high-pressure air bottle.

Well, the airplane would only get to maybe 37,000 or 38,000 feet. And the higher I

went, the more money I was going to make. So I was trying for altitude for a long

time.

At about 38,000 feet, I pointed to at least a 60-degree dive angle. And then by

29,000 feet I had slightly over Mach 1, and shut off the hydraulic system. I only had

three things to remember. And I think I should have had a checklist to remember

these three things. The first thing was to shut off the boost. The next one was to open

the speed brakes. Well, that was easy enough. I opened the speed brakes, and nothing

happened that I could tell. So instead of pulling back on the throttles, I started

thinking: what’s the matter with these speed brakes? So I looked in the mirror, and

they were just open a little bit. And about this time I looked back in the cockpit, and I

was already at 18,000 feet. And the thousand-foot needle was going around more

than once a second. I went from 33,000 to 13,000 feet in less than 20 seconds. But

instead of pulling the throttles back, I turned the boost back on. I was pulling about

90 pounds with one hand, and as the boost came on, I could easily have pulled the

wings off the airplane. But I relaxed that pressure back to about 45 pounds as the

airplane approached six Gs. I was aware that the airplane design parameters were six

Gs at 520 knots equivalent air speed, and I was doing 560. But without a G-meter, I

26 The F7U Cutlass was a radical twin-jet, swept-wing, tailless jet fighter. Though it did

deploy aboard Navy carriers (and was the first operational missile-armed Navy jet fighter), it

was not a great success and did not remain in service very long.

26
thought I must be pulling six Gs.

It showed on the records after I got through that I had pulled between six and six

and a half Gs for eight seconds, and missed the ground by less than 2,000 feet. So if

I’d have turned the boost on two seconds later, I’d have hit the ground and made

probably the biggest hole that an F7U ever made. I was going 700 miles an hour at

12,000 feet. But that was a point where I thought there probably would be some pilot

that would pull the wings off. There might be another pilot that would have hit the

ground. And then again, there might have been a pilot that would have pulled the

throttles back and avoided all that excitement. [Laughter.]

ANOTHER SPEAKER: Did you get your money?

I got part of it. But it turned out that the Navy signed off on their structures and

their recovery with the boost shut off. They didn’t want any more tests. The airplane

had both fins bent and one rudder fluttered. And there was just a jagged piece on the

post that was in the fin. I called the ground station and I said, “Well, CVA, this is

Mike. I’m still here.” And I was pretty glad of that. And I said, “Both fins are bent,

and one rudder is gone.” And Martin Collis called up. He said, “Well, I’ll come up

and have a look at it.” I said, “Looking at it isn’t going to do it any good. Just rig the

chain gear,27 and I’ll come down and land it there.” So that was really an uneventful

landing after getting the machine out of the dive.

But I did have several thoughts. You see, thoughts run through your mind when

you’re in a tense situation sometimes. The first thought that went through my mind

after 18,000 feet was: what’s Cleo going to do with those three little kids? And the

next thought I had, after I was pulling the Gs, was: I guess that engineer that designed that control arm and that hinge point there sure must have done a good job of

designing the thing, because it’s still hanging on the airplane.

Well anyway, I think that any of you that know anything about physiology of G

forces — after three or four seconds of six Gs, most people will be at least grayed

out. By the time you get to near eight seconds, most will be unconscious. And I know

that I was still pulling the 40 pounds at the bottom of the dive. Because I was going

back up again. The canopy completely frosted over, going from 70 below zero to 80

degrees in the Texas area there. And by the time I got back near 12,000 feet, I

thought: well, I’m going fast enough and high enough, and pulled the throttles back

so I could fly back to the base.

There is one other thing that maybe later on Scotty will talk about. I was really

wondering why there were so many high-altitude losses of control. I know a lot of

pilots — Yeager did it twice, and [Capt. Arthur “Kit”] Murray did it once. And

Milburn Apt28 — that was probably an error in judgment that they sent him that high

and that fast on his first flight. But as the years have gone by, we’ve gotten pretty

27 A runway arresting mechanism for stopping an airplane that might be damaged too seriously

to stop by normal braking.

28 Capt. Apt died on 27 Sept. 1956 after flying to Mach 3.2 in the rocket-powered X-2. The

aircraft went out of control due to predicted inertial roll coupling after he became the first pilot

to reach Mach 3. The rocket had burned longer than predicted, forcing the pilot into a

quandary. He had either to decelerate through Mach 2.4 as planned, in order to make a safe

turn but at a greater distance from the landing site than expected, or risk the predicted

27
well into stability augmentation, and yaw dampers, and thrusters, and things like that

on airplanes. And my opinion about it is that maybe they should have done a little of

this work a little lower and a little slower before they went up there and lost control.

But that’s probably 20/20 hindsight.

HALLION: Most of you probably heard a strong sonic boom a few minutes ago.

That was a tribute, by the way, that Ed Schneider told me that he was going to make

specifically for this symposium this afternoon. That was a Dryden F-18 flying

through Mach 1 in honor of the D-558-2, and the accomplishments of the D-558-2

and the D-558-1 in transonic and supersonic flight testing.

Now, we’re going to start this afternoon much as we did this morning. I’m going

to give a quick overview on the D-558-2 program, and some of the work that was

undertaken there.

I mentioned this morning that as the D-558 program went along, we had a series

of two mock-up conferences. And at the second of those mock-up conferences,

which took place in August of 1945, the decision was reached to split the program,

so that we would have a Phase 1 that was a straight-wing aircraft and a Phase 2 that

was a swept-wing airplane. How did this come about?

Basically, there had been tremendous interest in the swept wing generating in

this country since the mid-1940s. In late 1944, you had had Robert T. Jones, an

aeronautical research engineer at the Langley Memorial Aeronautical Laboratory, as

the Langley Research Center was known in those days — who postulated the notion

of the swept wing for transonic drag reduction, independently of German work. This

is an important point, because I think that there’s a myth that we live with in aviation

history — and that is that we got the delta wing and the swept wing from Germany,

and that we were ignorant of these things until we had the chance to examine the

German aircraft industry. Nothing in point of fact could be further from the truth.

Both the swept wing and the delta wing were indigenous American developments.

And their history is a very interesting history.

In April of 1945, in fact, Jones undertook research studies on the swept-wing

configuration, at the behest of Theodore von Kármán, who was an immigrant

Hungarian aeronautical scientist and the scientific advisor to the Army Air Forces.29

And they put a wind-tunnel model together — a very sharply swept model. And it

confirmed that the swept wing had very good aerodynamic characteristics — up in

the high supersonic range, to Mach 1.72. This is one of those classic problems I

mentioned earlier about tunnel testing. You could get very good subsonic data, and

instability that caused his death. On this, see, e.g., Richard E. Day, Coupling Dynamics in

Aircraft: A Historical Perspective (Edwards, Calif.: NASA SP-532, 1997), pp. 10-13, Richard

Hallion, On the Frontier: Flight Research at Dryden, 1946-1981 (Washington, DC: NASA SP4303, 1984), pp. 76-78, and Lane E. Wallace, Flights of Discovery: 50 Years at the NASA

Dryden Flight Research Center (Washington, DC: NASA SP-4309, 1996), pp. 54, 181.

29 Von Kármán had been a student of the eminent fluid dynamicist Ludwig Prandtl at the

University of Göttingen and later rivaled his mentor in that field of study, which included

aerodynamics. He headed the Guggenheim Aeronautical Laboratory at the California Institute

of Technology before becoming the scientific advisor to the AAF. See Michael H. Gorn, The

Universal Man: Theodore von Kármán’s Life in Aeronautics (Washington, DC: Smithsonian

Institution Press, 1992).

28
you could get very good supersonic data. But in that transonic region in between,

from about Mach 0.75 to about 1.25, the measurements were very suspect. Beyond

that, when they were dealing with this model at about the 1.5 to 1.72 range, it

exhibited very good characteristics.

In May of 1945, as part of the American industry’s effort to study the German

aircraft industry, L. Eugene Root and A.M.O. Smith, two individuals — as I mentioned this morning — who were intimately involved in the D-558 program, went to

Germany as part of the Naval technical mission to Europe — NAVTECHMISSEU,

as it was called. And they visited the, if you will, German Langley — the so-called

Aerodynamische Versuchsanstalt [aerodynamic research facility or test station]

outside Braunschweig. And they learned there of the tremendous range of work that

was going on in Germany on swept-wing development. This came, if you will, as

confirmation of their inclinations to pursue the swept wing. Root stayed on in

Europe. Smith returned to Douglas in early August. And to show how rapidly this

turned — as I mentioned, at the second mock-up conference on the D-558-2 which

was held in the middle of August (August 14-17), the decision was reached to go

ahead and launch a swept-wing variant of the airplane.

From the first photograph, you’ll see that this was a very different beast. If you

compare this with the Skystreak, as we saw in cutaway this morning, this aircraft for

supersonic performance was to have a rocket engine in the back end, a so-called

Reaction Motors 6000C4. That stood for 6,000 pounds of thrust from four thrust

chambers. We have an example of the engine here on stage. In fact, you see the

independent thrust chambers — each one of which gave you 25 percent thrust. And

that would be tucked in the tail cone of the airplane. Therefore, you couldn’t have a

very large jet engine.

Fortunately Westinghouse, at the time, was developing a family of axial flow

Number two D-558-2 Skyrocket being launched from a Navy P2B mothership. (NASA photo E2478).

29
turbojets — the model J30 and the model that would eventually become the J34. And

so the decision was reached to put a Westinghouse model 24, the predecessor of the

J34, in the belly of the aircraft as well, exiting under the tail cone. So this would be a

combined propulsion jet and rocket airplane. That greatly complicated, as you can

well imagine, the internal fuel capacity for the aircraft. In fact, the airplane operated

initially with three fuels. It operated with a liquid oxygen and water-alcohol mix for

the rocket engine. It operated with jet fuel for the J34. And it operated with hydrogen

peroxide to power the turbopump. So this was an airplane that was already getting

pretty exotic in most respects.

Kermit Van Every was the aerodynamicist who designed the configuration of the

D-588-2, working with Ed Heinemann. And if we take a look at this, it’s an interesting machine. It was intended for ground takeoff and landing. There was no desire yet

to air-launch this airplane. There was some thinking that maybe we’d go in that

direction, but it was far off. The airplane was designed with anhedral on the wings.

In other words, they were angled downwards slightly. And they had reverse taper.

They had a 10 percent thickness:chord ratio at the root, and a 12 percent

thickness:chord ratio at the tip. You had Handley Page leading edge slats on the

aircraft. You had wing fences, and the flaps of course.30 And it was a 35-degree swept

configuration which was relatively conservative in terms of the evolution of the

swept wing at that time. It was comparable in wing sweep to the F-86 then coming

along.

To ensure that the pilot had adequate control over the aircraft should it encounter

transonic difficulties — to prevent the drag divergence Mach number of the wing

and the tail being equal — they swept the horizontal tail surfaces at 40 degrees. And

it also had a fully adjustable horizontal stabilizer, just like the X-1. The load limit on

the airplane was lower than the D-558-1. Instead of the 18 G ultimate load, it had a

12 G ultimate load. It had a 7.33 G limit load, which was consistent with military

fighter design practice at the time.

When the aircraft was originally designed, it had an X-1 style nose configuration. You had a smooth ogival body shape and a flush canopy. The cockpit, as with

Cutaway view of the D-558-2. (Photo provided by Tony Landis).

30 Slats were long, narrow auxiliary airfoils affixed to the leading edges of the wings to

increase lift at high angles of attack. Fences were stationary plates or vanes projecting from

the upper surfaces of the wings, substantially parallel to the airstream. They were used to

prevent spanwise airflow detachment over the wing.

30
the D-558-1, was a confining little space. Now the first airplane flew on February 4,

1948, with Johnny [John F.] Martin at the controls. He was a Douglas test pilot of

distinction, more noted for his work in attack-bomber and transport flying than highperformance aircraft flying. But a couple of deficiencies became visible pretty

quickly. One of them was a very annoying Dutch Roll oscillation that resulted in

Douglas eventually increasing the height and the area of the vertical fin.31 And also,

the visibility from that cockpit was pretty horrible. So the airplane was modified to

have basically a Skystreak-like high-speed canopy.

It was about a Mach 0.85 airplane, straight and level on jet engine only. Very

underpowered, but that would be expected, given the small Westinghouse engine.

Let’s go back about ten years to 1938. If we think of 1938 and the Navy’s

leading fighter in 1938, it’s the externally braced Grumman F3F biplane — 250

mile-an-hour maximum speed. A decade later, we have a Mach 2 aircraft flying. It’s

not at Mach 2. It won’t be at Mach 2 for another five years. But that is how rapidly

the technological change is taking place. That is the radical transformation that we’re

seeing in aviation technology at that time.

You know, we speak today of the fact the computational power is doubling every

18 months with computers. And that is obviously extraordinary. But if you look at

this — in its own way, in a very hard-core/hard-technology sense, this is an equivalent revolution that we see taking place in terms of the profound impact it’s having.

Now there were several difficulties operating the D-558-2 in its initial configuration. I mentioned that it was severely underpowered. This, of course, greatly complicated flight safety. It had some rather dangerous takeoff characteristics. Typically, it

would take off with four JATO bottles strapped to the airplane to give it an additional

kick in the rear on takeoff. Takeoff rolls were very, very excessive. These kinds of

problems, particularly also the problem then of operating it with a rocket engine and

very volatile rocket propellants at some point, caused people to begin thinking more

and more about both safety and performance advantages of operating it as an airlaunched airplane.

On 24 May 1949, we had the first NACA flight in the D-558-2 number 2 by Bob

Champine. It was still a jet-only program. This was the aircraft then, which Bob and

John flew briefly before it was returned to Douglas for modification to air launch —

all-rocket air-launch configuration — in January 1950. But in this brief six-month

period of flying — as John and Bob both alluded to in their presentations — it flew

extensively on early swept-wing pitch-up investigations. The first pitch-up encounter

was by Bob on 8 August 1949. It was a pitch-up, in a four G turn at 0.6 Mach

number, to six G. John Griffith then, on 1 November 1949, encountered one that was

more interesting. Severe pitch-up, a snap roll, and then a low-speed pitch-up, and a

departure [from straight and level flight] in turn that was eroding rapidly into a spin.

In June 1949, the D-558-2 number three, which became NACA 145, made the

first supersonic flight using both jet and rocket propulsion. Gene May, Douglas pilot,

remarked, “The flight got glassy smooth — quite the smoothest flying I had ever

known.” I think that was an indication right there that the airplane was going to be

pretty successful as a supersonic research airplane.

31 Dutch Roll is a complex oscillating motion of an aircraft involving rolling, yawing, and

sideslipping. It takes its name from its resemblance to the characteristic rhythm of an ice

skater.

31
In September 1949, Hugh Dryden, who was the NACA’s Director of Research,32

recommended to the Navy that the D-558-2 be modified for air launching. Why?

Three reasons — safety, performance, and research. The research attributes were that

you could now compare the performance of a 10-percent swept-wing aircraft over

the same speed range as the straight-wing 10-percent NACA XS-1. And you could

compare the conventional airfoil cross-section of the D-558-2’s swept wing with the

unconventional airfoil cross-section of the Bell XS-2, which used a radical so-called

bi-convex section that was then under development. That was good enough for the

Navy.

On November 25, they added an amendment to the contract to modify the

number two and the number three aircraft to air-launching. The number two would

be an all-rocket airplane. The number three would retain its jet and rocket engine.

The Navy had a small fleet of B-29s for a variety of test purposes — anti-submarine

warfare research, things like this. And so a B-29, or as the Navy designated it, a P2B1S, was set aside as the launch aircraft for the D-558-2.

We had the first air-launch of a D-558-2 on September 8, 1950 — Bill

Bridgeman in the number three airplane. And then you had the first NACA flight in

this particular aircraft, beginning the NACA’s supersonic air-launch research

program with the Skyrocket on December 22 of that same year with Scott Crossfield.

The real attention was focused less on the number three airplane, which of

course was both jet- and rocket-propelled and became a maid of all work. The real

attention was focused on the most glamorous of the Skyrockets, and certainly the one

that has become the most famous to us, and that was, of course, the all-rocket

number two airplane, which is now hanging in the Smithsonian Institution. This

airplane, which received the call sign of NACA 144, had greatly increased fuel

tankage over the jet-and-rocket Skyrocket. It could carry 345 gallons of liquid

oxygen, and 378 gallons of water-alcohol.

If we take a look at the Douglas contract and the program on this aircraft which

began in 1951, we see some interesting things and some very interesting highlights.

We had the inadvertent first flight on 26 January 1951. This was a case where there

was a fuel-pressure drop. Bill Bridgeman called to George Jansen, his launch pilot,

and said, “Don’t drop me, George.” And George Jansen, his finger mashed down on

the transmit button, kept intoning the countdown. Bridgeman was launched saying,

“Damn it, George. I told you not to drop me.” And the chase pilot, who was Pete

Everest in an F-86, said, “You’ve got some keen friends, Bridgeman.”33 That’s one of

my favorite stories. Bridgeman recovered very adroitly, and went up to Mach 1.28 in

the airplane. He noted a decrease in elevator effectiveness above Mach 1. That, I

suspect, didn’t come as too much of a surprise.

On May 18 — just to give you some highlights — he reached Mach 1.72 at

62,000 feet, 1,130 miles an hour, making the Skyrocket the world’s fastest airplane.

In June 1951, he extended this to 1.85 Mach number, 1,220 miles an hour, but

experienced some very violent rolling — 80 degrees a second — causing him to

32 That year he assumed the title, Director, rather than just Director of Research. See Michael

H. Gorn, Hugh L. Dryden’s Career in Aviation and Space (Washington, DC: NASA Monographs in Aerospace History #5, 1996), p. 9.

33 Quotations in Hallion, Supersonic Flight, p. 164.

32
prematurely terminate the rocket flight with over 50 seconds of rocket fuel remaining. The problem here was, as he was going to very low pushover load factors, the

airplane was becoming increasingly unstable. Bridgeman assessed this very well.

And on August 7, 1951 he reached Mach 1.88 safely, using a higher .6 to .8 G

pushover, as opposed to the .25 pushover load factor that he had used on his earlier

flight.

Douglas then turned to the potential of the aircraft to exceed the world’s altitude

record, which was held by the balloon Explorer II, going back to 1935 — a 72,395

foot record. Bridgeman on 15 August 1951, reached 79,494 feet, making the Skyrocket both the world’s fastest and highest airplane. I think this is a tremendous

tribute to Bridgeman as a pilot, and to Ed Heinemann as the designer of the aircraft.

The airplane, in fact, when you took a look at it, had some significantly better

performance than its designers had predicted. In fact, its supersonic drag was

actually less than what people predicted at the time.

If we take a look at a couple of classic photos from this period, Bridgeman

developed a very close association and friendship with Chuck Yeager, who flew a lot

of the F-86 chase missions. And this is a very evocative photograph, I think, of the

D-558-2, drifting down from a research flight with Yeager in the F-86, speed brakes

deployed, coming down behind him.

Now, for the NACA’s part: you know, if 1951 was the time in which Douglas

was exploring the high-speed realm with the all-rocket number two airplane, the

NACA’s part — working on the D-558-2 number three — began basically what

would become a two-year program here. And Scotty will certainly be talking about

this, and Stan as well, involving basic aircraft handling qualities and evaluation of

various flap, fence, and leading edge devices on the aircraft.

In 1952 and 1953, the NACA shifted to examining the high supersonic behavior

of the D-558-2 number two. We have here, I think, another evocative photograph.

This is 144 in its prime on the lakebed. And you can see how futuristic it really

D-558-2 number two returning from a research flight with an F-86 flying behind it as a chase

aircraft. (NASA photo E-3996).

33
looks. And these were really Scotty’s glory days in the Skyrocket. Some highlights

here: August 5, 1953, he reached Mach 1.878; August 21, the Navy borrowed the

airplane for some high altitude and high speed flights. It was hoping — frankly — to

break Mach 2. It didn’t happen. Marine test pilot (Lt. Col.) Marion Carl nevertheless

distinguished himself. On 21 August, 1953 he reached 83,235 feet, an unofficial

world’s altitude record. On 14 October, 1953, Scotty reached Mach 1.96. The

airplane had boosted performance at this time, due to a rocket nozzle extension on it.

And at this point, the High-Speed Flight Research Station now requested and got

Hugh Dryden’s permission to attempt Mach 2. Herman Ankenbruck devised the

flight plan. Scotty would basically climb to 72,000 feet, do a pushover, and reach

Mach 2 in a shallow dive. The plane was extraordinarily prepped for this. Scotty will

go into that in much more detail than I will. And on 20 November 1953, as I think

we’re all aware, he reached over Mach 2 — 1,291 miles an hour at 62,000 feet — the

first Mach 2 flight, which was a tremendous accomplishment — both reflecting on

Scotty’s abilities as an airplane driver and the design of the airplane. This was

undoubtedly the high point of the D-558 program.

We have to recognize that a lot of people made this thing come together. I’d like

to talk about some of these. These are the P2B as well as D-558 crewmen. And, of

course, supporting these people were folks here at the Center on the ground — the

maintenance staff you know. The test pilot in this process is merely a singularity, so

to speak — the tip of the spear. But that spear is forged and wielded by a great

number of other people.

Now if we take a look at the twilight years in the Skyrocket program from 1954

through 1956, the last flight taking place on December 20, 1956, by Jack McKay —

and we have Jack’s son John with us today. If we take a look at it, these were not

years in which things went necessarily very smoothly, although they were undoubtedly extremely productive.

Stan Butchart, Neil Armstrong, and Jack McKay had a very up-close and

D-558-2 number two on the lakebed. (NASA photo E-1441).

34
personal encounter with a near disaster in 1956 that I think Stan will be giving us a

great deal more information on — when they had the number four engine run away

with them, shed its prop, and do some serious damage to the launch aircraft, and

indeed pass right through the space where a few seconds before Jack McKay had

been in the D-558-2 before it was jettisoned in an emergency. That was about the

most dangerous moment, I think, in the entire D-558-2 test program.

We had then the fruition of work on the D-558-2 number three’s pitch-up

investigations, which resulted in some experimental design changes to the airplane,

some of which were quite promising, but which didn’t pay off. We had, for example,

the effort to explore behavior with leading edge slats open. And indeed, fully open

slats did work to a great degree. They eliminated pitch-up, except between 0.8 and

0.85 Mach number. However, surprisingly, a sawtooth leading-edge extension from

which much was expected actually, in Scotty’s views, aggravated the pitch-up

problem significantly. And so it proved of no value whatsoever.

A little-known aspect of the D-558 program is that after going through this

pitch-up program, it embarked on a number of investigations of external stores,

looking at the drag of external stores on aircraft at transonic and supersonic speeds.34

Now, this is extremely significant work. Because if we think about the Mark (Mk.)

80 family of stores — the Mk. 82, the Mk. 84, other bomb shapes, drop tank shapes

— that we live with today, that basically is an outgrowth of the D-558 program. The

D-558 took these shapes, which were experimentally developed by Douglas, and

refined them to the point now that we could operate strike aircraft at long distances

with streamlined stores with significantly less drag than the kind of clunky bomb

shapes and tank shapes we were operating with that were basically holdovers from

the World War II and immediately post-World War II era. The Mk. 80 store shape,

which was applied generically then to a whole family of shapes for both tanks and

bombs, was really quite a remarkable accomplishment. And the D-558 played a role

in it, both here for bomb shapes, and for tank shapes as well.

At this point, I’d like to terminate my little presentation on the raw history, if

D-558 wing configurations.

34 “Stores” were such things as external fuel tanks or bombs.

35
you will, of the D-558-2. And we will move from this point on to discussion of

actually operating the D-558-2 aircraft. So at this point, I’m going to introduce our

two very distinguished personalities that we have here this afternoon to talk about

these: Scott Crossfield and Stan Butchart. So, Stan — first we’ll start with you.

Stan, of course, was out here for a number of years. He retired from Dryden in

1976, after a 25-year career in research aviation. Born in New Orleans, 1922. Served

as a naval aviator in World War II. Graduated from the University of Washington

with a Bachelor of Science Degree in Mechanical and Aeronautical Engineering in

1950. In fact, Stan and Scotty were in the same Guggenheim Aeronautical School at

the University of Washington. And Stan began his career with the NACA in 1951, a

year after Scotty.

His experimental flight career included piloting the X-4, the X-5, both the

Skystreak and the Skyrocket. He flew the B-29 that launched the X-1A, and then the

B-29 — the P2B-1S — that launched the D-558-2. They’re obviously not the same

B-29. And also then flew the KC-135 tanker out here, and the F-100A.

But there’re a couple of other things about Stan that I think we need to mention.

I’m sure a lot of you are aware that one of his best buddies in all the world from

Torpedo-Bomber Air Group VT-51 on the San Jacinto back in World War II was a

fellow by the name of George Bush, who went on to bigger and better things. Had

Stan profited from that wise counsel and followed a different career path, think of

how different the world might be today!

Stan has another distinction that I just learned about last night. And I got to

thinking about this. It’s really quite interesting. Stan flew the Grumman Avenger,

which was a big, hefty torpedo bomber. It was called the TBF when it was built by

D-558-2 number three with a bomb shape under its wing. (NASA photo E-1161).

36
Grumman. Grumman couldn’t meet the Navy’s requirements for mass production of

the aircraft. It concentrated instead on fighters. And so most of the Avengers were

built by General Motors and were called TBMs. It was a maid of all work for the

Navy — did some tremendous work — anti-submarine patrol, attacks on islands, did

a lot of basically 500-pound bombing, things like that. In other words, it served

primarily in roles other than what it was originally intended for, flying as a torpedo

bomber.

Well, Stan is one of the very few people who not only learned to drop torpedoes,

as he was becoming a naval aviator and proficient in operating the Avenger. But he

actually dropped a torp in combat. In fact, he dropped four of them, I believe. And

one of these was against the Japanese carrier Zuikaku (which was one of the six that

struck Pearl Harbor in 1941) during the Battle of the Philippine Sea. And he’s too

modest to state with certainty that he got a hit on it. But it absorbed several torpedo

hits in the Battle of the Philippine Sea. And I’m certainly willing, for the record, to

accord him credit for it. So, Stan, you played a role in avenging Pearl Harbor. And I

think we all owe you a tip of the hat for that.

Now I’d like to introduce also a very good friend, Scott Crossfield — a legendary figure in aviation certainly, and an individual that I have a fond affection for. And

I’ll explain why a little bit later.

Scotty joined the NACA in June 1950. If we take a look at the roster of airplanes

he flew, it’s sort of a who’s who and a what’s what of research airplanes — the X-1,

the X-4, the X-5, the XF-92A, the D-558-1 and 2. He had 87 rocket flights in the X-1

and the D-558-2 aircraft, plus 12 flights in the D-558-2 on jet power only. He flew a

number of modified service aircraft. He did zero-G studies in the F-84, roll coupling

studies in the F-100 and the F-86. I think he even cracked a vertebrae at one point, if

memory serves me right, in the F-100 in some of the roll coupling work.

He made aeronautical history obviously on November 20, 1953, with his Mach 2

flight. But then he left the NACA in 1955 in an act that was pretty selfless. He was

very concerned about the future of the X-15, which he could see was a potentially

milestone airplane. And he was very concerned about some of the glamorous hangar

queens that had come along, that had actually had some serious difficulties — the

Bell X-2 and the Douglas X-3 being notable examples.

And so he went to work for North American Aviation to shepherd the X-15

through its development and through its contract-to-flight test program. And I think

the fact that he did that explains in large measure why the X-15 was the tremendous

milestone airplane that it was. During his flight testing of the X-15 with North

American, he flew the airplane 14 times, made 16 captive flights additionally in it,

reached a max Mach of 2.97, 1,960 miles an hour, at a max altitude of 88,000 feet.

Then he did something that I really find interesting. In 1960, he published an

autobiography called Always Another Dawn.

35 And I realize he wrote this when he

was age 39. And what’s very interesting is if you take a look at Scotty from that point

on, he ought to really start thinking about working on volume two. Because from that

point on, he continued to do a tremendous amount of work with North American on

various programs — the Hound Dog missile program, Paraglider, the Apollo

Command and Service Module, the Saturn booster.

He went to work as an executive with Eastern Airlines. He went to work with

35 Subtitled The Story of a Rocket Test Pilot (Cleveland, OH.: World Publishing Co., 1960).

37
Hawker Siddley Aviation. Served as a technical consultant from 1977 to 1993 on the

House Committee on Science and Technology. And Scotty, I think there’re many —

myself included — who might argue that given what you did with that Committee in

that period, it actually may be among the very most significant things that you did.

Because you helped keep the Congress straight on aeronautical issues for quite a

while there.

We’re talking to a man here who’s a Collier Trophy winner for 1961 — the

Clifford Harmon Trophy for 1960. But the thing that I really remember Scotty for is

the fact that when I was an undergraduate at the University of Maryland, I did a

senior thesis on transonic and supersonic research airplanes. And I’m kind of

embarrassed by it now, frankly, when I flip back through it. But then, with the height

of ego, I sent it off to Scotty and said, “Give me your thoughts on this.” And he did!

And not only that, but they were polite, which amazes me even more, given what he

was reading.

And then he took the time to invite me down to meet with him. So I met with

him in — I think it was the summer of 1970. And he spent the better part of a day

going over this thing, page by page. So Scotty, I personally tip my hat to you,

because I owe you a lot for that. And I appreciate it very much. I’m delighted that

I’m able to have a chance here today to introduce you to this symposium.

So Stan, we’ll start with you. You’re up. And the subject is B-29 or P2B-1S

launch operations in support of the Skyrocket program. And then we’ll follow with

Scotty talking about the events leading up to his Mach 2 flight. [Audience applause]

BUTCHART: As Dick said, I had flown both the Skystreak and Skyrocket. I was

mainly asked to talk on the B-29/P2B-1S mothership operations. But since I did fly

the other two, I’d like to make a couple of comments there.

The Phase 1 was the first research plane that I flew. And I considered it a fun

airplane to fly. It was small. And it was just fun to fly. But there’s kind of a little

story that goes with the day I came down here from Boeing — flew down to be

interviewed by Joe Vensel for a job. And we spent the day watching an X-1 ground

run, and looking at all the airplanes in the hangar, and crawling in them. And when

he got through that afternoon, he wanted to take me up front and introduce me to

Walt Williams — the big boss. And the only thing Walt said when he met me, “Will

you fit in the Phase 1?” And I said, “Yes, sir.” “Okay. You’re on.”

But the Phase 1 was interesting. As Dick mentioned this morning, the air split

and went down the sides. The cockpit was only 22 inches wide, straight down the

sides. You flew it with your elbows in, and the wheel between your knees, and

crunched down. Your helmet was up into a tight canopy. We had a chamois skin on

our helmets to keep from scratching the inside of the plexiglass. There was a double

layer — glass and then plexiglass with air in between to keep the frost off. And if

you turned your head a little bit to try to see out to a chase or wing tip, your head

would get stuck, and you’d have to suck it back down to get forward again. If you

ever had claustrophobia, that was the airplane to get it in.

But a couple of other little interesting things that happened in it. I mentioned one

the other day to [someone] — I think Bob was the other culprit along with me. But

most of the flights made in that airplane were with wing tanks — tip tanks. You took

off. And when you got to 40,000 feet, your tip tanks were empty. And you could

jettison out over PB-6, one of the bombing range targets out back here. By the time I

38
got my turn to fly the airplane, Joe Walker had used up all the tip tanks. So all of my

flights were made just with internal wing fuel. And it was only 202 gallons. You had

a little odometer on the instrument panel. And they’d set it at 202. And as you started

the engine, it started clicking down — two gallons at a time. By the time I’d get to

40,000 feet, I’d have enough fuel to do one or two runs, and it was time to head

home.

Well, one day I came back. And I guess I stretched it a little bit. And I landed.

Joe Vensel walked up and looked in the cockpit, and there was [a reading of only]

eight gallons showing. And all he said was, “There was another pilot out here ahead

of you. He came back with 12 gallons, and I grounded him.” And I think that was

you, Bob. But it was going fine. Eight gallons was great.

The other thing that was an interesting story on that little airplane — you saw

pictures of it earlier. I’d forgotten that the canopy opened from the back forward.

They’d take it out to the south lakebed where we made all our flights from. They’d

get set up. And you’d crawl into the thing. And they’d help you strap in.

And Raczkowski — Tom Raczkowski — was the crew chief. He’d get on one

side on the stepladder. And Andy Hyland was the inspector. He was on the other side.

And as you made your engines start, they were watching to make certain you didn’t

over-temp it, or didn’t do anything wrong. Anyway, when they’d get through, why

they’d close the canopy. You had two handles to lock it with. I locked it, and I

thought I was all set to go. Then they finally motioned me to open the canopy. They

didn’t like something. I guess it didn’t fair in with the fuselage the way they had

expected it to.

So they opened the canopy. And there was an air tube that blew hot air out into a

delivery tube in between these windowpanes to keep the frost off. That hot air was

blowing in my face. So while they were working on it, I had my hand up over this

tube to keep the hot air off. And all of a sudden, Raczkowski decided to close that

canopy. My thumb was still there. And oh man, you know, you jump and wail. They

saw something happened, and they said, “You okay? You want to go?” It didn’t hurt,

so I said, “Okay.” By the time I got to 40,000 feet, that thing was going thunk, thunk,

thunk. And boy I wished I was on the ground.

But one other little item on both the Phase 1 and the Phase 2: all the airplanes

nowadays — everybody is proud when they get an airplane that it has “zero-zero”

escape capabilities. In other words, you can be sitting at zero air speed on the end of

the runway [at zero altitude], and punch the eject button, and go out and make it.

Well, as I think back, we had zero-zero on the Phase 1 and Phase 2 — in reverse

really. There was a flight envelope. There was a little spot here that it was safe to get

out in. And it wasn’t an ejection seat. You got out by pulling a handle. And the whole

nose fell off. You pulled another handle. That released the back rest. Then you

crawled out the back. And this envelope was so small in altitude and speed that we

would look at that information and put it in file 13 and go ahead and fly. But that was

our “zero-zero” in reverse.

Well, I’d better get on to the main thing I was going to talk about, and that’s our

launch operations. When I came to work here, as Dick mentioned, I’d always been

single-engine.36 And I’d been here a week or two. Scott was going to check me out in

the twin-engine C-45 that we had. We went out to the end of the runway. A kid

36 That is, had flown single-engine airplanes.

39
named Don Turndrup (I think his name was) was flight engineer. He was sitting

down between us. Typical fighter pilot, the first thing Scott does is jam both those

throttles forward, and we do a 45 degree turn. He got it straightened out, and away

we went. He finally got me checked out I guess, and I flew it for two or three weeks.

Well, there’s a moral there. Never have a fighter pilot check you out in a multiengine airplane. They can’t.

I had forgotten the date of Bridgeman’s last flight. You say the 15th [of August,

1951]. Well, two days later on the 17th, George Jansen, the B-29 pilot for Douglas,37

called Joe and me and said, “Come on down. We’re going to take a flight in the B29.” And we went out and flew for an hour, made a couple of landings on the south

lakebed. We were B-29 pilots. You know, nowadays you’re months, or weeks

anyway, going to ground school.

As I looked back in my log book, I noticed that that was on the 17th of August.

A couple of days later, Joe and I took it out for a fam[iliarization] flight on the 21st.

On the 22nd of August, we made our first drop flight with Walt Jones in the 145 —

the one with the jet engine.38 So we got underway in a hurry. And I think we made

three or four flights with Joe in the left seat. Then he turned it over to me, and I had it

for the next six years.

I made the following chart up to show the extent of the flying we did from ’51

through about ’56 with the rocket airplanes. I’ve included the three — X-1A, X-1B

and X-1E — just to show the number of flights we made.

37 George Jansen was a noted Douglas test pilot. He had been a B-24 pilot in World War II and

was a veteran of the Ploesti raid of August 1943.

38 Douglas D-558-2 #3 (bureau #37975, NACA 145).

40
Scott has the largest number of flight drops. Jack McKay was next in line. These

were just the flights that I made. Joe Walker made a few while I was on vacation.

And the bottom half is the aborts that we made. And by aborts I mean instances when

we had to bring the rocket airplane back down with us. If I dropped it and the engine

didn’t fire, that was their fault. At least I got off the hook.

But it was a busy, busy time. We were flying through the summer of ’56 — ’55

and ’56. And we were operating almost six rocket airplanes at the same time. I was

making two, sometimes three, flights a week on either a Skyrocket or one of the Xairplanes.

I was going to show our typical daily operation. And Dick mentioned something

about what he thought the scariest part of the operation was — that accident we had.

And I think this was the scariest part. [Shows photo E-1013.] You’d put the B-29 on

jacks. And you’d get it so high in the air you just weren’t certain whether it was

going to make it or not. We were controlled by wind. We couldn’t do this in more

than about five or six knots of wind, I think. Anyway, it was pretty low. And once we

moved up to this facility39 from South Base, we found we could get in a hangar, and

get it between the beams, and jack it up high enough to get the Skyrocket under it.

And you didn’t have to worry about the wind then.

After they got the thing loaded, they would tow it out to the area where we had

the storage tanks for the liquid oxygen and the water-alcohol and peroxide. And it

D-558-2 number two being positioned under its Navy P2B mothership being elevated on

hydraulic jacks. When the Skyrocket was in position, the P2B would be lowered so the D-558-2

could be attached to the bomb bay of the “mothership” for climb to altitude before being

launched. (NASA photo E-1013).

39 To the present location of the Dryden Flight Research Center from the old location on South

Base.

41
was out just on the south side of where the big hangar is here now — to load the

propellants on board.

There was one interesting thing that happened about ’55, I guess. When we

moved up here in ’54, there was no taxiway between the NACA and the Air Force. It

was a year later before they built that. So we would load, and then take off on the

lakebed. We used the lakebed a lot anyway. But I think it was in the summer of ’55

then. They were going to build the hydraulic hoist that you have out there yet. First

they had to dig the concrete out — pretty big area. And then the ground was so hard

that they would dig in, and put some dynamite in, cover it with plywood, blow it, and

get in and dig some more. And nearly every day we’d hear a dynamite blast go off.

And one day in the summer I was getting ready to go on leave. And Vensel says,

“Well, can you stick around until we get this flight off?” “Sure.” So it was on a

Friday, I think. We were standing by his office, and the B-29 was loaded. It was

sitting out in front of us there. And all of a sudden, kaboom — a bigger blast than

normal. I looked up and a piece of plywood was flying through the air. It went right

through the elevator of the B-29. So I said, “Joe, I’ll see you in a couple of weeks.”

And away we went. But once we got those hoists put in, why, I think you’re still

using them to lift the vehicles up underneath the B-52.

Well, we got loaded. Now we’re back to that crew again. I wanted to show a

picture of the crew. And I don’t know if I can even remember all the fellows that

were there. But the fellow on this left end was one of the fellows that served as flight

engineer for me. And I think on the far side I see Dick Payne, who was crew chief on

some of the X-airplanes for us. I’ll take a peek. Yes. I think that’s Joe Walker and

Walt Jones both there with us. If you noticed on the front of the airplane, of the B-29,

there were lots of patches of Skyrockets.40

Crew next to P2B and D-558-2. From viewer’s left to right, standing, Donald Hall, Dick Hanna,

Bill DeGraff, Joseph L. Tipton, Charles Russell; squatting, Joe Walker, Stan Butchart, Dick

Payne, Walter P. Jones. (NASA photo E-677).

40 Each patch indicated a separate drop.

42
Anyway, we got the thing loaded and ready to go. The typical operation, the way

it went was that if Scott was wearing a pressure suit on a pretty high altitude flight,

he’d come aboard the B-29 with it partially on, not fully zipped up, and not in it

completely. I’d get the airplane — the B-29 — airborne, and oh, maybe we’d climb

out 7-, 8-, 9,000 feet. He could finish zipping up into his pressure suit, and it was

time for him to get back in the rocket airplane. Two crewmen would go back with

him.

Once they got the canopy closed, and the radio hooked up, and were happy with

it, they had a switch they could throw. It would light a light on my instrument panel

that would say “ready for drop.” And this told me that from then on, any time we had

a problem in the ’29, our gentlemen’s agreement between us was, I’d get rid of him.

If he had a problem [in the drop airplane], I’d get rid of him. We’d fight our battles

by ourselves. But fortunately we didn’t do that on one occasion and, I think, saved a

pilot. And another time we did it and saved another pilot.

But those little ’29s took a beating. You were at climb power for at least an hour.

And if Scott wanted to get a little higher — 34-35,000 feet, we spent another thirty

minutes on the last 3-4,000 feet. And the airplane was at climb power all this time.

And you know what that does to an engine. Well, there were a few times when the

engine would fail by the time I got to altitude — swallow a valve, or something

would go wrong.

But the day I want to talk about was March 22nd of ’56. Neil [Armstrong] and I

were flying the ’29. Jack McKay was in the rocket airplane. And just as we got to

altitude — around 31,000 feet, somewhere over Palmdale, the number four engine

quit. It just quit running, firing. I turned around. Well, I used to kind of let the copilot do a lot of the flying. And I would direct him where we wanted to go. Then I

could turn around in my seat and kind of watch the flight engineer and the rest of the

crew. And I asked [Joseph L.] Tipton, “Well, did you try cross feeding?” “Yep.” “Did

you try this?” “Yep.” We went through two or three things. And nothing was working.

So I thought: well, no sweat. We’ve done this before. We’ll feather it.41 And I hit

the feathering button. And it looked like it was stopped. The blades looked like they

were stopped. And all of a sudden the engine started winding up again. And this

particular ’29 had a separate tank for feathering. So you could feather once,

unfeather, and feather again. And I knew I had two left. And I think about that time

Jack called me. He said, “Hey, you can’t drop me.” A valve down at his side that he

jacked up some of the nitrogen pressures for the engine with, broke. He said, “I felt it

break in my hand.” I said, “Okay.” And I think we hit our six-minute point by then. I

had picked a six-minute point opposite of where we wanted to drop. Two minutes

out, two minutes in the turn, two minutes back.

And we started through that procedure. I hit the feathering button the second

time. Same thing happened. And I thought: well, we’ll make it on around, and get

this drop over with. And part way around, I guess that’s when Jack called me and

said, “Don’t drop me.” Well, about that time I had hit the feathering button the third

time and ran out of fluid again — the last time. And I called Jack and said, “Jack,

I’ve got to drop you.” I told Neil to push over. We had to get in a dive — to get up to

41 To feather a propeller is to rotate it so that the blade is parallel to the direction of the airflow

so as to reduce wind resistance.

43
about 210-220, so they wouldn’t come out in a stall. As soon as the needle got it

pointed around headed back towards the lake, we were up to speed. I reached up to

pull the emergency handle. I had watched them test that every time they ever loaded.

It was a T handle on the dash. I reached up and pulled, and nothing [happened]. The

other way was to hit two toggle switches, and then pickle it off. And that worked.

Series of photos showing damage to the P2B March 22, 1956, when the number four engine

exploded and shed its propeller. (NASA photos E-2200, E-2203, E-2210, E-2213, E-2221) .

44
And away he went. And just a few seconds after he departed, that engine blew — big

time.

I could remember seeing the page in the handbook that said if you were above

20,000 feet, and you couldn’t slow it down below 120, you were going to have a

centrifugal explosion. Well, we did! And Neil said it looked like the kitchen sink

going by. It was the nose dome off the B-29. And the blades went in all four directions. Unfortunately, one of them went right through us. It cleaned off that engine

completely, as you can see. One blade went through the bottom of the number three

engine there. And I don’t know if you can see the slot in the fuselage. It went through

the bomb bay, right where Jack was sitting. And it hit the number two engine on the

other side.

Well anyway, when I heard that boom, I thought: well, we’re home free. We got

it made. About that time, I reached up to help Neil fly the airplane, and my wheel

was loose. I just [turned it and] nothing [happened]. I looked over at Neil and said,

“You got lateral control?” “Yeah, a little bit.” And he had that much free play in his

wheel. [Shows a small space with his hands.] It had cut part of his aileron cables.

And the frayed cables were sticking out. And he was dragging those through a

fairlead. And they’d get caught once in awhile.

Well anyway, while we were wrestling with that, Tipton turned and said, “Butch,

you’ve got to feather number three.” And I said, “Why?” Well, the shrapnel had hit

the side of the airplane in so many places that one had cut right through our fuel line,

our throttle cable, oil pressure, everything on the engine. So we essentially lost

control of [engine number] three. And it feathered all right. Now you can’t see there.

But it actually hit the bottom part of the number two engine. So you know that blade

was traveling going through there. And fortunately number three feathered all right.

But that left us with two engines on one side. The only nice thing was we were at

30,000 feet. So we glided out around Boron and came straight into the lakebed.

Then Neil kind of got in an argument. He said, “You’d better get your gear

down.” I said, “Wait a minute.” “We’re getting closer. Better get your gear down.”

Well, nobody had ever made a 30,000-foot approach to the north lakebed in a B-29.

He kept thinking we were going to overrun it. And I wanted to make certain we got

there. Because I could only use [engine] number two. Number one had too much

torque [being further out on the wing]. And both of us on the rudder could not hold

it. Anyway, we landed with both of us on the elevators, and both of us on the rudder,

and he on the ailerons.

I think we made our last flight on the 20th of December of ’56. Jack McKay

made it in 144. After that the airplane sat for quite awhile. This was just some time

before the Navy came to pick up the various airplanes to take them to the museum.

In fact, that was the first time I ever got to see the nose detach to see how that

ejection system worked. On the Phase 1, there were two bomb shackles built

vertically into the bulkhead. When you pulled a handle, you released the bomb

shackles. The Phase 2 was a little different. It had a wheel quite similar to the bank

vault, where it pulled pins in from the side. And after everybody had flown the

airplane, we finally got to see how it worked.

But they sat like this for awhile. And then Neil and I took the P2B-1S over to

Litchfield Park in Arizona, which happens to be the Navy’s storage field for airplanes quite similar to what Davis Monthan is for the Air Force. And there’s one

more little part of that story.

45
We took it over there on the 5th of August ’59, figuring that’s the last we’d see

of it. It would be melted into pots and pans, like everything else. And about 20 years

later, Neil sent me a little newspaper clipping with a story about some guy with a lot

of money who had gone in there. And the airplane was still sitting there. He purchased it, and brought in a crew to refurbish it and go over it. And it had zero time

engines on it when he took it over. But they still had to go through them all. Anyway,

they spent a lot of money going through it, fixing it up, and getting it ready to fly.

He hired some retired colonel who had flown B-29s to fly it for him. And they

were going to make a couple of local flights around Litchfield before heading for

Oakland. And when he came back from the first flight, he asked him how it was. And

the colonel said, “Fine. Except I had to hold that wheel over most of the time.” So

they went through it, and checked the trim, and checked the rigging, the whole nine

yards. And they went out and flew it again. The same thing happened. And that time

they really got into it — took all the inspection plates off, and just did a real thorough

inspection. And what they finally found was that all the years it sat there, some of the

inspection plates were off the bottom of the wing, and birds had been living up in

there. And there was about 800 pounds of bird dung out in that one wing. And that’s

what he was holding up. And they cleaned that out. And the airplane flew over to

Oakland.

I never did get to see it. But I had heard it was on the West Coast going to air

shows and what not. Then I lost track of it, and a few years ago, at one of our

squadron reunions — I think in New Orleans or Pensacola — this fellow that came

to our reunion every year and owns a TBM said, “Hey, I found your B-29.” I said,

“Where is it?” “It’s in Florida.” Some guy by the name of — is it [Kermit] Weeks?

He buys a lot of airplanes. He’s got a lot of money. He purchased the thing. The

fellow that was telling me said they’re going to use it for a static display. Then this

last summer when we were back there, he said no. It got damaged in that hurricane a

couple of years ago. But he is going to rebuild it as a flying machine. So I’m looking

forward to seeing it again. But he went back. Took out the cutouts that we had in it.

Put bomb bay doors on it. And put it back so it looks like a B-29, P2B-1S.

Neil used to get the biggest kick out of taking people back — to the back of the

airplane and showing them where it said: NAVY P2B-1S. It had been painted on

there years ago. Even when you take the paint off, it’s still kind of etched into the

fuselage. And he thought that was neat. So that was my experience mostly with all

the years of making those drops. And Scotty, I think it’s probably all yours now.

[Audience applause]

SCOTT CROSSFIELD: How sweet it is to be last. You were always late, Butch. But

that’s all right.

This is kind of a nostalgia trip for me. But I’d like to make one aside while I get

up here. I’d like to dedicate my part of this 50th anniversary celebration for the

Phase 2 to Walter C. Williams. [Audience applause] Walt Williams probably had

more to do with advancing aeronautical and aerospace arts in the 20th century than

any other ten men, as far as I’m concerned. He started out with a crew of 12 people

here at Muroc. And he was with that program — all the programs that NACA, and

NASA, and many that industry did, all the way up through the Space Shuttle. He

made the operational go/no-go decisions for every one of those, and had quite a part

in keeping some of them from becoming national disgraces. Frankly, I’ll say that

46
while I have a high regard and respect for Wernher von Braun,42 Walt Williams has

been an order of magnitude bigger contributor to what we’ve done in space than von

Braun. So Walt, if I do well, this is to you. If I don’t, well. . . . And I’m not sure he’s

up there, frankly.

You know, there is no history, only biography. If you stop and think: if we ever

talk about anything being done, it’s done by people like these people down here, who

have proved that anybody who can read without moving his lips can fly an airplane.

Another key figure was Jack Russell. Jack Russell probably did more rocket

flights than any other 20 men in the world. He was with Bell on the original X-1. He

came and worked for the Air Force. And then he came to NACA, stayed all through

NASA. And he was with all of the rocket [airplane] flights, I believe, that were ever

made. And he was one devil of a good rocket mechanic, technician, and all-around

guy. So this is to Jack Russell.43

And then there’s another guy that I’d like to pay a little tribute to. And that is the

man who brought the United States into prominence with rocket engines. And that

was Captain Bob Truax of the United States Navy. He started in 1937 working with

the Navy building rocket engines. And actually this family of engines built by RMI

[Reaction Motors, Inc.] up in New Jersey was a Navy part number in 1944, before

any Paperclip,44 before any Germans came over here and claimed Goddard’s invention,45 and everything else. Those engines were in the inventory for over 35 years. To

my knowledge, we never lost an airplane due to the failure of or a problem with the

engine, per se. And I’d like to give Bob Truax a little boost on this sort of thing.

JOHN GRIFFITH: I think Gerry Truszynski46 should be mentioned in development

of the instrumentation and the capability of bringing back the data that could be

42 Wernher von Braun, of course, was director of NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Center from

its inception until 1970 and in that capacity, headed the team that developed the Saturn family

of rockets that carried 12 astronauts to the Moon.

43 John W. Russell worked on the XS-1 for Bell and then became crew chief for the Air Force

on Chuck Yeager’s XS-1, “Glamorous Glennis.” He came to work for the NACA High-Speed

Flight Research Station in 1950 and for many years headed the rocket propellant group at what

became the NASA Dryden Flight Research Center, retiring March 11, 1977.

44 Operation Paperclip brought many German scientists and engineers to this country after

World War II.

45 Robert H. Goddard was an American rocket enthusiast who worked with only a small crew

of technicians. He managed to invent many of the technologies used on later rockets, but

because of his secretiveness, almost all of them appear to have been reinvented by others.

Thus, although he is considered by many to have been the father of American rocketry, it is

arguable that his actual influence was slight.

46 Gerald M. Truszynski was Chief of the Instrumentation Division at the High-Speed Flight

Station and its predecessor organizations. He worked on the XS-1, D-558 and other early

research aircraft and was responsible for setting up the High Range used for the X-15 flights

before he moved to NASA Headquarters to set up the Project Mercury worldwide tracking

network. See oral history interview of him and Hubert M. Drake, Nov. 15, 1996, in the NASA

Dryden historical reference collection.

47
analyzed to produce the reports that were the product, and the result, and the purpose

for what we were doing.

SCOTT CROSSFIELD: The D-558-2, as I knew it — I never flew it as a ground

takeoff airplane — was the airplane that wrote the book. The X-1 air-launch techniques had proven to be good as a poor man’s first stage to get rid of a lot of the

energy requirements at the front end of getting an airplane to altitude. That’s why

they went to air launch for the D-558-2, and for many of the other reasons that my

good friend Dick Hallion discussed.

The air that we fly in doesn’t like high sweep angles. It doesn’t like severe taper

ratios. And it doesn’t like low aspect ratios. And the D-558-2 had a little bit or a lot

of every one of those. And it was classic in what it did as a swept wing. And that’s

primarily the part I will discuss, as far as the handling qualities are concerned. The

tips of [the D-558-2’s] wings tended to stall before the roots of the wings.47 And if

that’s aft of the center of gravity (CG), the airplane wants to pitch up. And the pitchup of the swept wings was the only characteristic that we didn’t like. Everything else

was in our favor. It was low drag, had excellent supersonic characteristics, and many

other things.

So the D-558-2, probably with the group of the pilots here, must have done

thousands of pitch-ups, with almost every device known to man on the wing of the

airplane. And I’m going to discuss a few of those right now. What we thought was a

massive bureaucratic operation in our day was to get one research airplane in the air,

Wing fences on a D-558-2. (NASA photo E-580).

Wing slat on a D-558-2. (NASA photo E-816).

47 Stalling consists of flying at an angle and speed such that the wing (or parts thereof)

experiences a separation of airflow and loses lift.

48
and to support the pilot down there in front with all of those great people of NACA

on the South Base. And incidentally, the whole organization at that time was only 70

people, including the janitors. Can you imagine trying to make that look big next to

an Apollo launch?

We went to air launch, as I say, to get to the energy level that would get us to the

35-40,000 feet and up to launch speed without use of internal propellants. Incidentally, that’s a marvelous way to go flying, as compared to the usual commotion of a

takeoff with full power and pounding down runways. Airplanes aren’t supposed to

run fast on the ground, so that was a nice way to get flying. And that was a pretty

nice airplane to launch. It didn’t go out of the B-29, or the mothership, with as much

negative acceleration as the X-1, and it came out flying pretty well. Generally you

could get the engines lighting as you felt the shackles let go. We very seldom lost

[much altitude] — oh, maybe 100 feet — and the airplane was on its way.

Also on the wing we tried a whole lot of devices to see if we could reduce the

lateral transfer or flow of air that caused the separation of the air at the tips, which in

turn caused the pitch-up and the tip stalls that were aggravated by the swept configuration. We put fences on it. We put more fences on the wings. We put notched

leading edges. We put movable slats on the leading edge. And we put notches —

different kinds of notches — different kinds of movable and immovable slats on the

airplane. And really, not many of those things did an awful lot of good. The fences

probably did as much good as anything, as I remember today. I do not believe that

we put vortex generators on.

The technique would be to go up there and pull G at a fairly constant rate, trying

to maintain as constant an air speed as possible. And incidentally, there was something we really re-learned with these kinds of wings. And that is that the old CMCL

48

was a bunch of garbage as far as this goes. And we had to go back to the Cma.

Because CL was dropping so fast, that it looked like the airplane was going stable —

when really it was going quite unstable at the time. And the airplane would pitch.

The worst pitching airplane that we ever flew, and we saw some of those

problems, was the hard-wing F-86, which was just like this airplane when you had

everything locked up, and had just a plain untreated wing. And, of course, they made

that to get the speed to be the MiG killer that it was in Korea.49 And if we could solve

pitch-up, the techniques and methods we used with this airplane were those that

became the design criteria in almost every design room that built swept-wing

airplanes.

So that was a major contribution of the D-558-2, over a speed range of probably

up to about Mach 1.5. We never really could do much when we got above those

speeds. Because the speed wouldn’t stay up there long enough to maneuver and

48 CmCL

 represents the static stability in pitch of an aircraft. CM is the pitching-moment

coefficient. CL is the lift coefficient. Cma is the partial derivative of the pitching-moment

coefficient with respect to angle of attack — the angle of the airflow with respect to the wing

of an aircraft.

49 The F-86 averaged a 10:1 kill ratio over the MiG-15 in Korea, largely because the models

used there featured the all-moveable horizontal stabilizer first flown on the XS-1 and the D558s. Because their flight research was classified—although parts of the story about them

were reported in the press—the Soviets were not aware of the benefits of the all-moveable

horizontal stabilizer in transonic flight conditions.

49
accomplish what we wanted. And, of course, all of the work that we did with this

airplane was to do it at enough altitude that the wing would stall before we reached

its structural limits. I never had any of the roll-off with the D-558-2 that John and

Bob Champine mentioned with this airplane. It was probably because I kept the ball

in the center [laughter].50

You know, I had to be chuckling. I want to tell a little story I mentioned last

night. Everybody up here has been having trouble with his memory, along with me. I

couldn’t remember what we did in this airplane. We were discussing that the other

night at supper. And I mentioned that I was having a little trouble. I’d go into the

flight service station. Couldn’t remember whether I came in to close a flight plan or

to open a flight plan. And Bob Champine says, “Yes. Same thing. I’d be at the top of

the stairs, and couldn’t remember whether I was going to go down or I’d just come

up.” Griffith says, “I don’t have any of those kinds of problems at all. My memory is

just as good as ever — knock on wood [sound of rapping]. . . . Come in!” And of

course that guy Butch — Butchart’s a frustrated fighter pilot. He had to fly

torpeckers [slang for torpedo bombers] in the Navy.

Incidentally, the airplane you saw — that beat-up B-29 — you ought to see some

pictures of airplanes that Stan Butchart brought aboard a carrier. They were

unflyable. He violated the laws of physics; he brought some airplanes home that

were pretty badly beat up. And that’s one reason I gained quite a bit of respect for

him. Because it wasn’t to save the airplane. It was that I believe on two occasions he

had a badly injured backseat man. And he wasn’t going to abandon him.

Well anyway, Butchart checked me out in a B-29 — much as he claims I

checked him out in a C-45. That was very interesting. And I’m going to make a long

story short. I said, “Do you stall a thing like this?” I’m an old fighter pilot. Stalls are

pretty common. He says, “Yeah, you’re flying it.” So I pulled it back. And it began

shaking a little bit. And I looked over at Butch, and I said, “Do you go very deep into

the stall?” And he said, “You’re flying it.” And the guys in the back were beginning

to scream. Because things were shaking pretty badly. Well, I didn’t want to seem to

be chicken with this whole thing. So I looked at him, and he was very calm. Same

way he is right now. So I pulled this thing back. And it was shaking. I’ll tell you —

I’d never been in a Tehachapi earthquake that was shaking so badly. All of a sudden,

the right wing went out. And when those four engines started going around, you

knew you had your hands full. Well, it was with consummate skill, I got this thing

out of the spin into a screaming dive, then leveled out. I think probably I was shaking

a little bit by then. I wasn’t worried about me. I was worried about how I was going

to explain to Vensel about that damn B-29. I looked over at Butch and I said, “What

did you let me do that for?” He said, “You were flying it.” That’s his idea of a checkout.

Incidentally, these guys did me some good favors, too. Bob Champine went back

to Virginia. So Griff hired me. And then Griff got an offer from Chance Vought and I

said, “Hey, take it — take it.” He left me with a fleet of the finest airplanes that a

man ever got to fly. Howard Hughes couldn’t afford the airplanes that I got paid to

fly. And it was a good crew. And it got so there we had a pretty good flight rate for

awhile, before we moved to the good laboratory up on the north end. And it would be

like an X-1 to fly for breakfast, X-4 for lunch, and a D-558-2 in the afternoon. And

50 A reference to centering the turn-and-bank indicator.

50
where could you get it better than that?

Of course the D-558-2 was one of our major projects. One of the things that very

few people know is that when we were looking at a lot of the work we were going to

do and then follow up with the X-2, I began working on what became the grandfather of all of our current full-pressure suits. The full-pressure suit final development

was done at NACA at Edwards Air Force Base, and we went a long ways to doing

that — to building the full-pressure suit.51

The first operational flight of a full-pressure suit was done by Marion Carl. He

wore an exact duplicate of the one that we were developing. On the altitude flights,

he went to 83,000 feet for the unofficial record that Butch mentioned. I mention that

because it was kind of the way we did things in those days. Nobody ever said we

could. But nobody ever said we couldn’t. And we never asked permission.

The full-pressure suit — much of it was sewn on my wife’s sewing machine.

Incidentally, it was a Clark development. And very few people realize that David M.

Clark probably was involved with the development of every bit of soft goods a pilot

has worn since probably 1937 — whether it be G-suits, coveralls, helmets, ear

protectors, much of the electronic gear, or that sort of thing. And he put a lot of his

own money in it. And sadly, Dave Clark’s gone. Because the nation misses men like

him. He sent his people out here. And they lived at my house. And I built the back

pad for the suit in my garage. We welded up the pressure bottle, and stress tested it in

the shop. Jim Artz welded that up, I believe. Maybe it was Eddie Lane — names I

think a lot of you people remember.

So we built this pressure suit. I built the console to test the suit, and did that sort

of thing. The way we did things in those days is: I bought the regulator that had the

gas ventilation flow go through it from the local gas company for seven dollars. The

only bureaucratic problem I ran into was, when I wanted my seven bucks from

NACA, I’d lost the receipt. And so I had to sign a voucher and say I really bought

this thing. Now if you can imagine the United States government today allowing you

to use something that only costs seven bucks, and didn’t have any paper on it other

than an invoice receipt, well, then you might begin to understand how it is we got

some things done in those days, in that glorious era where everything that couldn’t

be done was done in flight test, based on professional judgment and just moving

ahead.

It was, though, on these flights, as Butch described, that we began to realize that

we ought to have only one guy on the radio. And he preferably ought to be a pilot.

That finally went over through the development that we did on Apollo, and Mercury

and Gemini, where they had an astronaut as the one guy on the radio. Because it

would get so you had 15 people talking to you. The hydraulics guy wanted you to do

this. The aerodynamics guy wanted you to do that. And finally, I had a habit of just

turning the damn radio off, which didn’t help my reputation with the people on the

51 See documents 31-34 of this volume. By themselves, these documents are misleading and

need to be read in conjunction with the narrative. The Air Force pressure suit mentioned in

document 31 was not a full- but a partial-pressure suit. It was used extensively in flights at

Edwards. The Navy full pressure suit discussed in documents 32-34 was much more developmental than the documents suggest. Scott Crossfield is emphatic that full credit for its

development should go to Joe Ruseckas of the David Clark Co., who worked closely with him

in the development effort. As Crossfield says in the narrative, much of the development took

place at Edwards and in his garage at home.

51
ground very much. But it sure helped me get things sorted out.

On the D-558-2, I made the first NACA air launch in aircraft number 3, NACA

145, that used the rocket [as well as a jet] engine. And on that flight, we were going

to go up and start exploring the transonic characteristics of setting the trim, and

comparing it to the X-1, as we described here earlier, to see how much difference

there was in the AC52 shift of the swept wing versus the straight wing. And it was

appreciable, in that it had a larger chord on the swept wing. And the percentages

were about the same, but the moments were a great deal larger.

On that flight I lost an engine. The J34 engines did not like altitude, in spite of

one of their representatives here today who claimed they did. I went through about

35,000 feet on the rockets. And the jet engine sounded like a .50 caliber machine gun

going off. Very similar to the problems we ran into with a similarly constructed

engine in the X-4s. I lost the engine. And as the engine was spooling down, I quickly

lost all of the electrical power.

This was because of another totally isolated problem — that the reverse current

relay wouldn’t cut in until the generator output was down to 11 volts. And while it

was coasting from what it needed — around 18 volts to 11 volts — I had no radios,

no electrical power, no instruments. I also lost cabin pressurization and ventilation.

And the windshields iced over. So about the only choice I had was to put the sun on

a spot in the windshield, and then fly the airplane so it stayed there and so I knew at

least the airplane was right side up. And it was doing something it was supposed to

do.

You cannot fly blind. That’s absolutely true. Your sense of balance, and your

ears, and your eyes, and all of that, will not let you fly by the seat of the pants, blind.

So that was really the only instrument I had at that time. The needle was beginning to

wind down, and I didn’t trust it, because it was electrically powered.

John Conrad came up on my wing, and he just told me what to do — lower the

wing, raise the wing, and all that. He brought me all the way home. I owed him a

drink, and I bought it for him. Incidentally, as Fitz Fulton reminded me the other

night, he was the other chase pilot on that flight that day.

That was one experience with the D-558-2. And so from then on, we were very

cautious. We didn’t take the jet engine out to speeds at altitude. The reason for the

problem on that was, it was one of the first engines Westinghouse made, or anybody

made, that had an annular burner can.53 And when you got way out of design

pressure altitudes, the rotary component — the air going through the engine —

would cause quite a radical increase in pressure. And the turbines weren’t really

seeing what the temperature was telling you or the loads on them were telling you.

This was a common problem with those engines, until they put flow straighteners in

them coming out of the burner can.

The way we did things then was something that I would like to leave, if I leave

anything with this group here. Because if you remember — we went Mach 2 in

1953. Today the only airplanes that ever went significantly in excess of Mach 2 some

52 AC is aerodynamic center — the point in the cross section of the wing about which the

pitching moment stays practically constant despite changes in angle of attack. It is the center

of lift with respect to the chord of the wing.

53 An annular burner can was a combustion chamber on a gas turbine engine that had circular

inner and outer boundaries. (Can was simply another name for a combustion chamber.)

52
40 years later are all in museums. There’s something un-American about that.

There’s something we ought to be able to leave here that would encourage younger

people to take the risks and the gambles. And I don’t mean with personal hazard — I

mean the technical risks and the monetary gambles that it took to get where we were

going in those days.

I’d like to give an example of how we worked on those airplanes. We had a

lakebed that looked like your lakebed looks out here today [that is, filled with water].

And we put a drogue ‘chute on the airplane. I designed the drogue ‘chute. Jim Artz

welded up the piece. Then we riveted the container for it on the back of the airplane,

and literally used parachute pins to open some spring-loaded doors. And that would

pop out a little drogue that would pull the big drogue out.

We were going to have the capability to use the 5,000-foot strip down on the

South Base,54 which was all we had at that time — and keep flying when the lakebed

was wet. Unfortunately, that same problem with the reverse current regulator came to

bear again. On the first landing, I rolled down, the engine was spooling down, and,

of course, the battery didn’t cut in. There wasn’t enough voltage to pull the pin on

the parachute, so I rolled all the way down on the runway — and fortunately again,

with consummate skill, managed to save the airplane with a half ground loop at the

end of the runway — and then heard the thing come out. And the parachute fell on

the ground! My reputation as an inventor didn’t last very long after that sort of thing.

We fixed the ‘chute so it did work, but we never did use it on the runway.

Those were the kinds of things we did. The pilots had a big involvement and

participation in what we did with the airplane. We used professional judgment. And

we never had to ask anybody in Washington or the Air Force about what we wanted

to do. A lot of times we weren’t really sure what we were doing, except that we could

make some plans of our own, based on professional judgment. There are many more

stories like that and like the development of the pressure suit. And the reason for this

long-winded dissertation is that I would hope the young people that are coming along

now would say: “Hey, I can do that.” And go do it. No more of this “whose budget is

it going to come out of? Well, we tried that before. Did you think of this?” And all of

those cop-outs that caused all of our failures to be in direct proportion to a reason or

explanation of why we didn’t do something.

With the 144 airplane [which had its turbojet engine replaced by a rocket engine

in 1950], I did a dead-stick55 landing. Picked up a Joshua tree on landing, and I got a

little bit of ribbing from the crew. They photographed that Joshua tree that I’d picked

up in the landing gear, and put the photo in a frame. And it hangs in my den today.

So if my conceit needs calibrating, I can contemplate this and [laughter].

To get to the high-speed flights, I’d like to make reference to Bill Bridgeman.

All of these airplanes had a characteristic that was called high-speed yawing or the

instability that came with high speed. It really came with high speed and high

altitude. The high altitude reduced the aerodynamic damping. So any small instabili54 According to James O. Young, Meeting the Challenge of Supersonic Flight (Edwards AFB,

CA: Air Force Flight Test Center History Office, 1997), p. 28, the main runway at South Base

of Muroc Army Airfield (later renamed Edward Air Force Base) was already 6,500 feet long in

October 1946. In any event, it was not exceptionally long.

55 That is, without engine power.

53
ties were magnified to a large degree. Those things that did in Yeager, and Apt, and

Murray on the X-1 airplanes and the X-2 airplanes, were also similar to characteristics on the D-558-2 — probably more like the X-2 because of the inherent dihedral56

that we got from the swept-wing. And it would maybe oscillate once and then

diverge. Or if you were at too low a G, it would diverge — directionally diverge

[from straight and level flight].

Bill Bridgeman found that by manipulating the G, you could control the rate of

this divergence, and give yourself time to get in very soft controls to hold it on

almost a knife edge, if you please. He taught that to me. And by virtue of learning

that, we overcame that “supersonic yaw,” as the newspapers called it. And we

managed to take the airplane out substantially beyond its expected design speeds.

And in the course of that, we also were doing intermediate flights, going along with

this stuff.

And we never did get into any of those instabilities that we were right on the

ragged edge of all the time. And it was largely a flying technique. Because really

these divergences and motions that we got into were not as expected as many of the

other things that we encountered in high-speed flight. We knew that the X-2 was

unstable directionally, statically, and dynamically at a certain speed.57 We knew that

the X-1A and D were unstable at a certain speed directionally, both dynamically and

statically. But we really didn’t know the manifestation of “supersonic yaw” and why

it was happening in those days. In fact, do you remember why they had that huge tail

on that X-15? I put that on there.58 Fighter pilots need a lot of tail. And you don’t

have to live with those instabilities if you have an idea of what it is all about.

On the Mach 2 flight, people claim that I went to the Navy and got them to

convince Dr. Dryden to let us do that. And I really didn’t do that. I just dropped a

hint to the Navy — that wouldn’t it be great if they could whip Yeager’s ass, and beat

him to Mach 2! We knew that we had a very marginal situation. We were determined

that if we did everything just right, we could thread that needle right out there where

Ankenbruck had calculated it, and come out with about Mach 2.03, or something like

that.59

56 Inclination to roll about the longitudinal axis.

57 Static stability is the ability of an airplane to return to straight and level flight after it has

been disturbed by an outside force, such as atmospheric turbulence. To give one example, if

the turbulence forces the nose up slightly, a statically stable aircraft will return to level flight.

If the aircraft is statically unstable, on the other hand, it will nose up still more than it did

initially. Dynamic stability is the property of an aircraft that enables it gradually to reduce an

oscillatory motion produced by an outside force and return to straight and level flight. The

aircraft is dynamically unstable if it increases the magnitude of its oscillations unless controlled by the pilot.

58 To provide some background to this development, analytical studies at the NACA’s Langley

Aeronautical Laboratory by a team headed by John V. Becker indicated the need for a large

cruciform tail configuration on the X-15, with a “wedge” vertical fin to give an increase in

effective vertical fin area.

59 Herman O. Ankenbruck was the project engineer on the D-558-2 who designed the flight

plan to achieve Mach 2 by climbing to about 72,000 feet and pushing over into a slight dive.

Hallion, Supersonic Flight, p. 179.

54
We put nozzle extensions on the propulsion system. I had earlier on put the tank

regulators up in the cockpit, so that once we started the engines with the normal

pump inlet pressures, I could crank up the tank regulators another 10 or 15 pounds.

That was magnified with a pump inlet pressure. And that would give us a lot higher

pressures in the rocket — in each of four rocket chambers. That, with the nozzle

extensions, gave us an airplane that almost had 9,000 pounds of thrust, as compared

to the spec 6,000 pounds of thrust. It also burned the fuel a lot faster — appreciably

faster, anyway.

So after launch, and I got the four engines going, I would crank up the regulators. It was just a little bit of a throttle to get them up. The nozzle extensions, I think,

gave us probably 1,000 of the couple thousand pounds of thrust that we gained. It

wasn’t the first time we’d used them. But it’s the first time we ever used them to total

advantage.

We took that airplane. And everybody said supersonic parasite drag is not a

thing of consequence. But we didn’t give a darn. We taped every crack in that

airplane. We polished it. And it just shone like a — I won’t say it. It would get me in

trouble politically. And it was very smooth. We took every bump off of it, and sanded

it.

And then one of the things we did — we were looking to remove every pound of

drag we could on the airplane. The two jettison lines that stuck out the aft end of the

airplane that kept the fuel away from the B-29 were not really an essential part of the

D-558-2 if we launched. So Jack Russell made a couple of aluminum lines. Instead

of going straight out to jettison this, they curved back into the rocket engine wake.

So if I launched and fired the engines, they burned off and fell on somebody’s house

out here. But we didn’t have to carry them around with the additional drag they

produced. There was also another overboard vent line that came from the fuel tank

off the side of the airplane. We took that off the airplane, and put it on a bracket on

the B-29 so that when I dropped away, that was flush. So there just was nothing

sticking out on this airplane anywhere.

On the night before the flight, we cold soaked the alcohol all night long using a

big refrigeration unit. We got it so cold that probably we added another 10-15 gallons

to the capacity of the alcohol tank. And we also cold soaked the airplane. We loaded

the liquid oxygen (lox) in it very early that night before, and then kept upgrading it

all the time so that instead of being at -292 degrees, it was probably colder than that.

And we got more lox on board.

That almost did us in. The next morning, it was so cold that when they loaded

the peroxide, one of the overboard vents choked with ice. And so the pressure from

the loading peroxide vented it out through another part of a manifolded venting

system for that tank and sprayed out of the airplane and on to one of the mechanics

— Jack Moise. Jack hollered, and put his hands over his face. And another chap

named Kincaid — and I can’t think of his first name. Do you remember, Vicki?

VICKI IKLER [a retiree from the audience]: Gil.

CROSSFIELD: Gil? Oh, that’s a drink measure, isn’t it? Okay. Now I know. I’ll

never forget it. Anyway, he grabbed the hose. And he hosed down Jack Moise. And

we immediately bundled him over to the nurses’ station. Jack went inside. And the

nurse began working on his face, washing out his eyes, and that sort of thing. We

55
were concerned. Because peroxide is a very vicious chemical — very active. Well, I

took him over there. I saw that Jack was being taken care of, and I was going to head

out for the airplane.

Then I looked over at Kincaid, and he was sitting there soaking wet. And it was

a bitterly cold morning. I said, “You must be cold. Aren’t you freezing to death?” He

said, “No. I’m really quite warm.” “Oh, that’s great.” Whoa! — I turned around. He

was cooking. He was full of hydrogen peroxide himself. And he was getting warmed

up from that. He thought I was nuts because I began pulling his pants off, and he

didn’t know what my intentions were. Well anyway, he had two pairs of pants, and

two pairs of winter underwear on. When we got down to his legs, he had those white

spots on him that were characteristic of hydrogen peroxide burns.

So that was the kind of morning we started out with. I had a pretty bad case of

the flu. But I wasn’t about to give up after all the work that crew had done on that

airplane. We went out, and very fortunately, we had a little help from wind shear and

a flight plan that worked for a change. I was up on the edge of my seat. Everybody

was that way. And that day I didn’t even have to turn off the radio. So I had a lot of

advice, which was a bad habit. I went out and threaded that thing, and we made our

Mach 2.001 — or 2.005 they said. It was 1,338 mph. Then they finally re-corrected it

to 1,291 and something miles an hour. Mach 2.005, I believe, was what they gave

me. That sounds like a little press release because I made it past two. Walt was pretty

happy. And we were happy. It means nothing technically. It meant nothing from a

research standpoint. It only meant that we got in the ball game, and we got a score on

the board. And we beat Yeager there that time.

The Navy was pretty happy with that, and made quite a bit of a to-do about it.

And I was pretty happy, because I was invited to the 50th anniversary of flight down

at San Diego where the Ryan Corporation was celebrating. And my dinner partner

that night up on the head table was Esther Williams. So see, there are rewards for. . . .

The sequel to that story is it almost caused me a divorce. Esther got up to make

her speech. And she said, “You know, I’ve been getting a lot of static all night long

about sitting next to the fastest man on earth. But I don’t believe it. He hasn’t laid a

hand on me yet!” So without thinking — or maybe I was thinking — I reached over

and swatted her on her beautiful behind. And my wife never did forgive me for that.60

Thank you.

HALLION: I think we’ve had a really great day. We’re running just a little bit

behind. But with our panelists here, we’ll take at least ten minutes Q and A [questions and answers]. So gentlemen, and audience, the floor is now yours. I’ll repeat

the questions, for those who may have trouble hearing them. Do we have a question

out there?

DILL HUNLEY: Dick, this isn’t just about the D-558. But the two D-558s and the

X-1 shared the movable horizontal stabilizer. And there was a video the British put

out last year that attributed that innovation to British research. Do you know if

there’s any truth to that?

60 This story, including the quotation but not some of the details, is also told in Crossfield’s

Always Another Dawn, p. 179.

56
HALLION: It’s an utter myth. This obviously has been a symposium concentrating

on the D-558. But there is something here that we have to talk about regarding the X1 for a minute. The British television program was picked up by Nova [a Public

Television Broadcasting Station television series in the U.S.A.] — and to give Nova

its credit, it recognized there were a lot of flaws in it. The Nova people tried to work

as much as they could with the video. They had to work around those flaws and

some of the problems in it. The video that had been done in Great Britain suggested

that there was a technology transfer from the Miles Aircraft Corporation and the socalled Miles M.52 program, which was a proposed transonic research airplane that

never went anywhere.61

The video suggests that there was a transfer from the Miles M.52 effort into the

XS-1. Absolutely false. Partisans for the Miles M.52 program suggest that after it

was canceled, data was transferred to Bell. At the time that the M.52 was canceled,

the XS-1 was already flying. Its design had already been fixed. And there was no

possible way that there could be any technology transfer there.

This same issue on the all-moving tail — you know, actually the all-moving tail,

if we think about it, is like other devices that we’ve experienced — the flying wing,

the swept wing, for example. You know, if we go back in time, you can find predecessors. But you have to think: why were the people actually applying this technology to a particular aircraft design? In the case of the swept wing, which we have

talked about today as a means of alleviating transonic drag rise and achieving good

high speed performance, the concept actually dates back to the days of John Dunne,

before the First World War, where he was using the swept wing to alleviate stability

and control problems with tailless airplanes. It bore no relationship to the high-speed

requirements that people were looking at in the 1940s.

We had actually had all-moving tails appear as early as pre-World War I airplanes. In fact, if you take a look at the Wright flyer, you have here a canard surface

that’s an all-moving surface. But that’s a very different thing from what people were

actually trying to do here.

The NACA at Langley field in the 1940s undertook some very interesting

research with an airplane called the Curtiss XP-42, which they modified to have an

all-moving tail. And they studied the benefits and the advantages of the all-moving

tail thoroughly and recognized, certainly by mid-1944, that if you were to develop a

high speed research airplane, that would be a very desirable attribute for the aircraft.

So this idea that somehow the all-moving tail we’ve talked about was something that

we gained because we had exposure to or benefited from some foreign research —

once again, that’s simply not the case. And I’m glad you raised the question, Dill,

because it’s an important point to bring out. Other question here?

NEW SPEAKER (unidentified): I’ll throw this to whoever wants to catch it. I

understand a lot of the testing that’s gone on. You did your structural testings and

your coupling and rolling. But I heard no mention of the structural aerodynamic

aero-elasticity validation of the airplane, and was just wondering what particular

techniques you used to get stabilized on a dynamics point.

61 It was canceled in 1946 according to Jane’s Encyclopedia of Aviation, Michael J. H. Taylor,

ed. (rev. ed.; New York: Crescent Books, 1996), p. 675.

57
HALLION: Okay, Scott. It’s all yours.

CROSSFIELD: That one’s kind of easy to answer. Number one, the structural

demonstration was the responsibility of the contractor. And Douglas demonstrated

the airplane would meet the design-limit stress, and took it just beyond limit to

establish that. But these airplanes were built so strong, that they were — aerodynamically for what we were doing — virtually rigid. And so the aero-elastic effects

hardly ever showed up in the airplanes. The natural frequencies of the wings were

very high. And they didn’t have much effect on the kind of stability-and-control

handling qualities that we’re talking about. And that’s one of the reasons it didn’t

show up.

On the D-558-1, there was a rudder buzz at about Mach 0.999, just as it was

going to Mach 1.0. And I don’t believe anybody ever went into that rudder buzz.

That was the only dynamic problem that I remember on any of those airplanes. But

it’s primarily the strength of the airplanes. They were 18 G and 12 G airplanes,

respectively [that is, 18 Gs for the D-558-1 and 12 Gs for the D-558-2] — very rigid.

HALLION: Okay, Scotty. Next question?

NEW SPEAKER: Dick — Where did the designation 558 come from?

HALLION: The Douglas D-558 designation was a company designation. Douglas

used that prefix and numbering system for its own aircraft. You know, it’s really

funny. Because when Ken [Szalai] was getting the symposium together, there was

this idea of calling the symposium “The X-Planes That Weren’t.” And it’s really true,

you know. If we think about it, these were X-airplanes — undoubtedly. But they

were just like the XF-92A, which ostensibly from that designation, you’d think was a

prototype fighter, but in point of fact, it was a delta-wing technology test bed, was an

X-airplane. But the X designations, as they started out, actually were XS designations in those very early days. And they were basically the province of the Army Air

Forces — later the United States Air Force. And it was not really until we got beyond

the X-15 era that we started thinking of the X designation as a national designation

system, so that it was applied to aircraft that came from organizations other than the

United States Air Force. And remember the X-15 had a three-man executive steering

committee, beyond the NACA research airplane projects panel. You had an Air

Force, a Navy, and an NACA — later NASA — representative steering that. So that

clearly, you know, if we were developing the D-558-1 and -2 today, each one of them

would undoubtedly have a separate X-series designation. But the D-558 was a

corporate designation.

There was, incidentally, a D-558 that we haven’t mentioned here today. And

before the conference concludes, we should mention it. The Office of Naval Research was very interested in hypersonic flight. And in response to that, Heinemann

and his design team put together a proposal for a so-called D-558-3, which would

have been a Mach 6 research vehicle. And that was one of the concepts proposed for

what eventually became a competition among several aircraft manufacturers that

resulted in the North American X-15. But that was the D-558 that never was, so to

speak.

Other questions? Well, I think we’ve had a very good session. And I’m sure

58
there’re a lot of you who want to meet in person with our panel. I want to thank you

all for your attendance today. And I want to thank the leadership of the Dryden Flight

Research Center for having put this program together. I think Ken Szalai is out here

in the audience someplace — or he was earlier. And Ken, you very much deserve a

kudo for this. I must say, the activity of this Center over the last few years in putting

together historical symposia has been outstanding. So, here’s one for you. Thanks a

lot. [Audience applause]

Cover of Flights of Discovery showing William S. Phillips’ painting Mach 2 Dawn from the NASA

art program. The painting depicts Scott Crossfield’s Mach 2 flight in the D-558-2 described in

these pages.

59
SCHNEIDER: Well, I was thinking, first of all, of how fortunate we are to have Dr.

Richard Hallion — not only as a historian, but as a biographer and as an aviation

advocate. Secondly, how fortunate this country has been to have these pilots. Also,

the design team at Douglas, and the crews that made the airplane what it was, and

created this great database that this country has built its supersonic and transonic

capability on. Third, how fortunate we are to have these people here today, so many

years later, and able to talk to us personally where we become a part of this history

now by participating in it. And finally, how fortunate we will be if we really listen

carefully to the lessons learned, think about them, and apply them in our own areas

of responsibility.

I want to close this up by reading off the names of all the pilots that flew the D558. And I’m going to group them together. And I’ll identify them by organization:

From the United States Marine Corps: Maj. Gen. Marion Carl. From the United

States Navy: Captain Frederick Trapnell and Commander Turner Caldwell. From the

United States Air Force: Lieutenant Colonel Frank Everest, Major General Al Boyd.

From the Douglas Corporation — these are gentlemen that really had a tremendous

number of flights in the airplane: John Martin, Eugene May, Bill Bridgeman. And

lastly, from NACA: Bob Champine, Howard C. “Tick” Lilly, John Griffith, Scott

Crossfield, Walter Jones, Stan Butchart, Joe Walker, and John McKay.

I want to thank these participants. And we’re very pleased to have a representative, Charlie Delavan from Douglas, to help celebrate this great anniversary today.

And in recognition of that, we have a small memento. We’d like to ask the four

pilots, Charlie Delavan, and Dick Hallion please to come up here. And I’ll present a

small token of this day. Just come on up here.

We have a copy of a painting for each of you — Mach 2 Dawn — a very famous

painting, which also happens to be on the cover of our 50-year history, Flights of

Discovery. And we’re pleased to present each of you with this as a remembrance of

this day. So we’ll start here.

[PRESENTS COPIES]

So thank you, gentlemen. [Audience applause]

[END OF SYMPOSIUM]

60
61

Appendix — The Aircraft

Douglas D-558-1

The Skystreaks were roughly 35 feet long, 12 feet high, and 25 feet across the

(straight) wing span. They were powered by one Allison J35-A-11 engine (developed

by General Electric as the TG-180), which was rated at 5,000 pounds of static thrust.

The airplane carried 230 gallons of aviation fuel (kerosene).

NACA 140 is located at the Naval Aviation Museum in Pensacola, Florida.

NACA 142 is at the Marine Corps Air Ground Museum, Quantico, Virginia.

Douglas D-558-2

All three of the Skyrockets had a height of 12 feet 8 inches, a length of 42 feet,

and 35-degree swept wings with a span of 25 feet.

Until configured for air launch, NACA 143 featured a Westinghouse J34-40

turbojet engine rated at 3,000 pounds of static thrust. It carried 260 gallons of

aviation gasoline and weighed 10,572 pounds at take-off.

NACA 144 (and NACA 143 after modifications in 1955) was powered by an

LR-8-RM-6 rocket engine rated at 6,000 pounds of static thrust. Its propellants were

345 gallons of liquid oxygen and 378 gallons of diluted ethyl alcohol. In its launch

configuration, it weighed 15,787 pounds.
62

NACA 145 had both an LR-8-RM-5 rocket engine rated at 6,000 pounds of

thrust and a Westinghouse J34-40 turbojet engine rated at 3,000 pounds of static

thrust. It carried 170 gallons of liquid oxygen, 192 gallons of diluted ethyl alcohol,

and 260 gallons of aviation gasoline for a launch weight of 15,266 pounds.

NACA 143 is currently in storage at the Planes of Fame Museum, Ontario,

California. The second Skyrocket, NACA 144, is in the Smithsonian Institution’s

National Air and Space Museum in Washington, D.C. NACA 145 is on display in

front of the Antelope Valley College in Lancaster, California.
63

Documents
64

Document 1: Memo, Hartley A. Soulé, [NACA] Research Airplane Projects Leader,

To NACA, Subject: Discussion of D-558-1 airplane projects at NACA Headquarters on June 8, 1949, Date: June 13, 1949
65
66
67

Document 2, Memo, Donald R. Bellman, Aeronautical Research Scientist [at NACA

High-Speed Flight Research Station], To: [NACA HSFRS] Chief of Research,

Subject: Information concerning elevator vibration of the D-558-1 airplane, September 19, 1951
68
69
70
71
72
73

Document 3, Memo, Donald R. Bellman, Aeronautical Research Scientist, To: Chief

of Research, Subject: Progress report for the D-558-1 airplane (142) for the period

September 22 to October 5, 1951, Date: October 12, 1951
74

Document 4, Memo, Donald R. Bellman, Aeronautical Research Scientist, To: Chief

of Research, Subject: Progress report for the D-558-1 (142) airplane for the period

June 28 to July 11, 1952, Date: July 23, 1952
75

Document 5, Memo, Donald R. Bellman, Aeronautical Research Scientist, To: Chief

of Research, Subject: Progress report for the D-558-1 (142) research airplane for the

period July 12 to July 25, 1952, Date: July 30, 1952
76

Document 6, Memo, Donald R. Bellman, Aeronautical Research Scientist, To: Chief

of Research, Subject: Progress report for the D-558-1 (142) research airplane for the

period November 1 to December 1, 1952, Date: December 11, 1952
77

Document 7, Memo, Herman O. Ankenbruck, Aeronautical Engineer, To: Chief of

Research, Subject: Progress report for the D-558-II (37974) research airplane for the

period August 25 to September 7, 1951, Date: September 13, 1951
78

Document 8, Memo, Herman O. Ankenbruck, Aeronautical Engineer, To: Chief of

Research, Subject: Progress report for the D-558-II (144) research airplane for the

period September 22 to October 5, 1951, Date: October 16, 1951
79
80
81

Document 9, Memo, Herman O. Ankenbruck, Aeronautical Engineer, To: Chief of

Research, Subject: Progress report for the D-558-II (144) research airplane for the

period November 3 to November 16, 1951, Date: November 21, 1951
82

Document 10, Memo, Herman O. Ankenbruck, Aeronautical Engineer, To: Chief of

Research, Subject: Progress report for the D-558-II (144) research airplane for the

period December 1 to December 14, 1951, Date: December 18, 1951
83

Document 11, Memo, Herman O. Ankenbruck, Aeronautical Engineer, To: Chief of

Research, Subject: Progress report for the D-558-II (144) research airplane for the

period June 28 to July 11, 1952, Date: July 23, 1952
84

Document 12, Memo, Herman O. Ankenbruck, Aeronautical Engineer, To: Chief of

Research, Subject: Progress for the D-558-II research airplane (144) for the period

November 1 to December 1, 1952, Date: December 11, 1952
85
86

Document 13, Memo, Gareth H. Jordan, Aeronautical Research Scientist, To:

[NACA] Research Airplane Projects Leader, Subject: Progress report for the D-558-

II (144) research airplane for the period September 1 to September 30, 1954, Date:

October 6, 1954
87

Document 14, Memo, Gareth H. Jordan, Aeronautical Research Scientist, To: Chief,

High-Speed Flight Station, Subject: Progress report for the D-558-II (144) research

airplane for the period September 1 to September 30, 1956, Date: October 3, 1956
88

Document 15, Memo, Gareth H. Jordan, Aeronautical Research Engineer, To: Chief,

High-Speed Flight Station, Subject: Progress report for the D-558-II (144) research

airplane for the period November 1 to November 30, 1956, Date: December 4, 1956
89

Document 16, Memo, Gareth H. Jordan, Aeronautical Research Engineer, To: Chief,

High-Speed Flight Station, Subject: Progress report for the D-558-II (144) research

airplane for the period December 1 to December 31, 1956, Date: January 8, 1957.
90

Document 17, Memo, James R. Peele, Aeronautical Research Scientist, To: Chief of

Research, Subject: Progress report for the D-558-II (37975) research airplane for the

period August 25 to September 7, 1951, Date: September 13, 1951
91

Document 18, Memo, James R. Peele, Aeronautical Research Scientist, To: Chief of

Research, Subject: Progress report for the D-558-II (37975) research airplane for the

period September 8 to September 22, 1951, Date: September 28, 1951
92

Document 19, Memo, Jack Fischel, Aeronautical Stability and Control Scientist, To:

Chief of Research, Subject: Progress report for the D-558-II (145) research airplane

for the period October 6 to October 19, 1951, Date: November 6, 1951
93
94

Document 20, Memo, Jack Fischel, Aeronautical Stability and Control Scientist, To:

Chief of Research, Subject: Progress report for the D-558-II (145) research airplane

for the period October 20 to November 2, 1951, Date: November 8, 1951
95
96

Document 21, Memo, Jack Fischel, Aeronautical Stability and Control Scientist, To:

Chief of Research, Subject: Progress report for the D-558-II (145) research airplane

for the period December 1 to 14, 1951, Date: December 18, 1951
97

Document 22, Memo, Jack Fischel, Aeronautical Stability and Control Scientist, To:

Chief of Research, Subject: Progress report for the D-558-II (145) research airplane

for the period June 28 to July 11, 1952, Date: July 23, 1952
98

Document 23, Memo, Jack Fischel, Aeronautical Stability and Control Scientist, To:

Chief of Research, Subject: Progress report for the D-558-II (145) research airplane

for the period July 26 to August 8, 1952, Date: August 15, 1952
99

Document 24, Memo, Jack Fischel, Aeronautical Stability and Control Scientist, To:

Chief of Research, Subject: Progress report for the D-558-II (145) research airplane

for the period October 1 to November 1, 1952, Date: November 21, 1952
100
101

Document 25, Memo, Jack Fischel, Aeronautical Stability and Control Scientist, To:

Chief of Research, Subject: Progress report for the D-558-II (145) research airplane

for the period November 1 to December 1, 1952, Date: December 11, 1952
102
103
104

Document 26, Memo, Jack Fischel, Aeronautical Stability and Control Scientist, To:

Research Airplane Projects Leader, Subject: Progress report for the D-558-II (145)

research airplane for the period November 1 to December 30, 1954, Date: December

20, 1954
105

Document 27, Memo, Jack Fischel, Aeronautical Stability and Control Scientist, To:

Research Airplane Projects Leader, Subject: Progress report for the D-558-II (145)

research airplane for the period September 1 to September 30, 1954, Date: October

6, 1954
106

Document 28, Memo, Jack Fischel, Aeronautical Stability and Control Scientist, To:

Research Airplane Projects Leader, Subject: Progress report for the D-558-II (145)

research airplane for the period March 1 to 31, 1955, Date: April 18, 1955
107

Document 29, Memo, Jack Fischel, Aeronautical Stability and Control Scientist, To:

Research Airplane Projects Leader, Subject: Progress report for the D-558-II (145)

research airplane for the period July 1 to July 31, 1955, Date: August 11, 1955
108

Document 30, Memo, Jack Fischel, Aeronautical Stability and Control Scientist, To:

Chief, [NACA] High-Speed Flight Station, Subject: Progress report for the D-558-II

(145) research airplane for the period June 1 to 30, 1956, Date: July 24, 1956
109

Document 31, Letter, Ira H. Abbott, [NACA] Assistant Director for Research, To:

Major General Frederick R. Dent, Jr., USAF, Commanding General, Wright Air

Development Center, August 13, 1951
110

Document 32, Letter, J.W. Crowley, [NACA] Associate Director for Research, To:

Chief, Bureau of Aeronautics, Department of the Navy, Washington, D.C., Subject:

Request for assignment of Navy omni[-]environment full-pressure pilot suit to

NACA pilot of the D-558-II airplane, October 23, 1951
111
112

Document 33, Letter, J.E. Sullivan, Director of Airborne Equipment Division,

[Navy] Bureau of Aeronautics, To: National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics,

Subject: Navy Omni-environment Full-pressure Suit, assignment of to the NACA

pilot of the D-558-II airplane, November, 1951
113

Document 34, Letter, F.A. Santner, Director, Naval Air Experimental Station, To:

Chief, [Navy] Bureau of Aeronautics (AE-513), Subject: TED No. NAM AE 5101

Omni-environment full-pressure suit, research, development and test of; Flight test

in the D-558-II airplane at Edwards Air Force Base, Edwards, Calif., 3 August to 4

September, 1953, Date: December 8, 1953
114
115
116

Document 35, Letter, Walter C. Williams, Chief, [NACA] High-Speed Flight

Research Station, To: NACA, Subject: Choice of color for Research Aircraft at

Edwards, December 3, 1951
117
118

Document 36, Memorandum for Gordon S. Williams, News Bureau Manager,

Boeing Airplane Company, April 25, 1952 [Subject: air-launch technique]
119
120
121
122
123
124

Document 37, Letter, Walter C. Williams, Chief, NACA High-Speed Flight Research

Station, To: NACA, Subject: Increased thrust of the LR8-RM-6 rocket engine,

August 28, 1952
125
126

Document 38, Letter, Walter C. Williams, Chief, NACA High-Speed Flight Research

Station, To: NACA Headquarters; Attention: Mr. Clotaire Wood, Subject: Research

Airplane Panel Meeting, January 2, 1953
127
128
129

Document 39, Letter, Lieutenant Colonel Marion E. Carl, Senior School, Marine

Corps Education Center, Marine Corps School, Quantico, Virginia, To: Chief,

Bureau of Aeronautics, Aer-AC-241, Subject: Reports of flights in the NACA D558-II, October 28, 1953
130
131
132
133
134
135
136

Document 40, Memo, Donald R. Bellman, Aeronautical Research Scientist, To:

NACA Headquarters, Subject: Rocket nozzle extensions used on the LR8 engine for

the D-558-II, No. 144 airplane, January 25, 1954
137
138
139

Document 41, Letter, Ira H. Abbott, [NACA] Assistant Director for Research, To:

Chief, Bureau of Aeronautics, Department of the Navy, Subject: Results of use of

the rocket nozzle extensions for the LR8 engine on the D-558-II airplane, February

3, 1954
140
141

Document 42, Memo, Marion I. Kent, [NACA HSFRS] Administrative Officer, To:

Mr. Bonney [NACA Headquarters], Subject: The research piloting experience of Joe

Walker and Stan Butchart, April 29, 1954
142

Document 43, Letter, De E. Beeler, Acting Chief, [NACA] High-Speed Flight

Station, To: NACA Headquarters, Subject: Low temperature difficulties with

hydrogen peroxide in the model D-558-II airplane, July 29, 1954
143

Document 44, Letter, B.F. Coffman, Chief, Bureau of Aeronautics, To: National

Advisory Committee for Aeronautics, Subject: Improved version of the LR8 liquid

engine for use in the D-558-II airplane, June 2, 1954
144
145
146

Document 45, Letter, Ira H. Abbott, [NACA] Assistant Director for Research, To:

Chief, Bureau of Aeronautics; Department of the Navy, Subject: Improved version

of the LR8 liquid rocket engine for use in the D-558-II airplane, July 23, 1954
147

Document 46, Letter, B.F. Coffman, Bureau of Aeronautics, To: National Advisory

Committee for Aeronautics, Subject: Improved version of the LR8 liquid rocket

engine for use in the D-558-II airplane, August 11, 1954
148

Document 47, Letter, John W. Crowley, [NACA] Associate Director for Research,

To: Deputy Chief of Staff/Development, United States Air Force, Subject: Supply

support for the B-29, NACA Serial No. 137, based at the NACA High-Speed Flight

Station, Edwards, Calif., August 25, 1955
149

Document 48, Letter, Joseph R. Vensel, Acting Chief, NACA High-Speed Flight

Station, To: Chief, Bureau of Aeronautics, Subject: Completion of the D-558-II

Research Program, June 17, 1957
150
151
152
153

Index

A-4, 10

Abbott, Ira H., 109, 139-140, 146

Aerodynamic center, 52

Aerodynamische Versuchsanstalt, 29

Air Force Flight Test Center, 1

Air-launch technique, 118-123

Angle of attack, 24 n

Ankenbruck, Herman O., 34, 54 n, 77-85

Apt, Milburn, 27, 54

Armstrong, Neil A., 34-35, 40, 43-46

Army Air Corps, 21, 22

Army Air Forces, xii, 3, 7, 22, 58

Artz, James H., 51, 53

Aspect ratio, defined, 4 n

B-29, 18-19 ill., 36, 40-41, 50, 119, 150, see

also P2B-S1

B-47, 10, 127

B-50, 119

B-52, 10, 42

Beeler, De E., 142

Bell Aircraft Corporation, 4, 22, 57, 119-120

Bellman, Donald R., 67-76, 136-137

Bf 109, Messerschmitt fighter, 2

Boeing Airplane Co., 10, 38

Boeing 707, 10

Boeing 757, 10

Boeing 767, 10

Boeing 777, 10

Boyd, Albert, 7 n, 40, 60

Bridgeman, Bill, 32-33, 40, 53-54, 60, 121

Bush, George, 36

Butchart, Stanley P., x ill., xii, 34-46, 42 ill.,

50, 60, 141

C-45, 39-40

C-47, 19

Caldwell, Turner, 7, 60

Carl, Marion, 7, 34, 40, 51, 60, 113-114,

129-135

Cassidy, W. B., 113

Century series of fighters, xi,

Champine, Gloria, xiii, 11

Champine, Robert A., x ill., xii, 8, 11-13, 14-

23, 15 ill., 17 ill., 19 ill., 21 ill., 31, 38-39,

50, 60

Chance Vought, 26-27

Chord, defined, 4 n

Clark, David M., 51

Clark, J. R., 26

Coffman, B. F., 143, 147

Color for research airplanes, 116

Compressibility, xii, 3,

Conlon, Emerson, 4

Conrad, John, 52

Coupling dynamics, see High-speed instability

Crossfield, A. Scott, x ill., xii, 1, 10, 12 ill., 22,

32, 34, 35-41, 43, 46-56, 60, 109-113, 129

Crowley, J. W., 110-111, 150

D-558-1 Skystreak, xi-xii, 2-11, 20, 21-22 ill.,

 24-25, 28, 38-39, 61-62, 65, 73-76

bureau and tail numbers, 5n

TG-180 (J35) engine, 6, 8n

first flight, xii, 7

first NACA flight, 20

stalls, 25

ultimate load, 30

cockpit, 31, 38

all-movable horizontal stabilizer, 49 n, 56-

 57

numbering system, 58

drawings and data, 61-62

elevator vibration, 67-72

tail buffeting, 73, 75

aileron roll data, 74-75

dynamic stability, 75-76

loads, 87

D-558-2 Skyrocket, xii, 4-5, 7, 12, 13, 20, 24-

 25, 28-36, 29 ill., 33 ill., 36 ill., 39, 40, 41

ill.-42 ill., 48-56, 61-62, 77, 84-109, 129-

 135

bureau and tail numbers, 5 n

ultimate load, 30

cockpit, 31

first flight, 31

modification to air launch, 31, 65

speed and altitude records, 32-34, 51, 54-56

airplane that wrote the book, 48

swept wings and handling qualities, 48 ff.

air launching, 49, 121-123

all-movable horizontal stabilizer, 49 n, 56-

 57

turn-and-bank indicator, 50 n

comparison of swept wing with X-1’s

 straight wing, 52

electrical power, 52

drogue chute, 53, 101
154

nozzle extensions, 55, 136-140

other modifications for Mach 2 flight, 55

drawings and data, 61-62

stability, 78-79, 82, 83

buffet, 79

drag, 79

aerodynamic heating, 79

hydrogen peroxide and, 142

D-558-3 (never built), 58

David Clark Co., 51, 113

DeGraff, William, 42 ill.

Delavan, Charles, 11, 60

Dihedral, 54

Divergence, 54

Donaldson, E. M., 7

Douglas Aircraft Co., 1, 4, 7, 8, 9, 29, 32-33,

58, 65, 67, 69, 104

Dryden Flight Research Center, xii, see also

High-Speed Flight Research Station, HighSpeed Flight Station, Muroc Flight Test Unit

(all earlier names)

Dryden, Hugh L., 32, 34, 54

Dunne, John, 57

Dutch Roll, 31

Dynamic stability and instability, 54 n

Edwards Air Force Base, see Muroc Army

Airfield

South Base, 49

runway at South base, 53

Ejection system and procedures, 39, 45

Engel, Richard, Maj. Gen., 1

Everest, Frank ‘Pete,’ 32, 40, 60

Explorer II (balloon), 33

External stores, 35, 36 ill., 105, 124, 126

F3F, 31

F7U Cutlass, 26-27

F-84, 37

F-86, 12, 13, 30, 32, 33 ill., 37, 49

all-movable horizontal stabilizer, 49 n

stability, 127

F-100A, 36, 37

Feathering a propeller, 43

Fischel, Jack, 92-108

Flights of Discovery, 59

France, 11

Fulton, Fitzhugh, 52

G force, 24, 27

Goodlin, Chalmers, 22

Gough, Ed, 22

Gough, Melvin N., 14-15, 22

Great Britain, 11

Griffith, John, x ill., xii, 12-13, 16, 20-28, 31,

50, 60

Hall, Donald, 42 ill.

Hallion, Richard P., xii, 1-2, 24, 38, 60

Hanna, Dick, 42 ill.

Hedgepeth, John T., Jr., 141

Heinemann, Edward H., 9, 11, 30, 33, 58

High-Speed Flight Research Station, 11, 15 ff.,

 34, 49

radio communications, 51

ethos, 52-53

High-Speed Flight Station, 11n, 50

High-speed instability, 53-54

Hoover, Herbert, 14-16, 15 ill., 17 ill., 18 ill.

Hyatt, Abraham, 3

Hydrogen peroxide, 30, 142

Hyland, Andrew, 39

Icing research, 23

Ikeler, Vicki, 55

Jansen, George, 32, 40 n

Jet assisted take-off, 20 n, 22 ill., 31

Jet Pilot (movie), 25-26

Jones, Robert T., 4, 28

Jones, Walter P., 40, 42 ill., 60

Jordan, Gareth H., 86-89

Kármán, Theodore von, 28

KC-135, 36

Kent, Marion I., 141

Kincaid, Gilbert W., 55-56

Kotcher, Ezra, 3

L-39, 13, 23

Landis, Tony, 11

Lane, Eddie, 51

Langley Memorial Aeronautical Laboratory, 4,

12, 14-15, 28

Lewis Laboratory, 13, 23, 25 n

Lilly, Howard C., 7, 8 ill., 15, 20, 60

death, 7-8, 20

Liquid oxygen (lox), 55

Litchfield Park, Ariz., 45

M.52, 57

Mach 2 Dawn, 59

Mach, Ernst, xii,

Martin, John F., 1, 31, 60
155

May, Eugene F., 7, 8 ill., 31, 60

McKay, John B., 34-35, 40-41, 43-45, 60

Meteor, 7

Miles Aircraft Corporation, 57

Moise, John W., 55

Mojave Air Station, 65

Monocoque construction, 7

Muroc Army Air Field (later, Air Force Base—

still later, Edwards AFB), xii, 17, 22 n

Muroc Dry Lake, 17 ill.

Muroc Flight Test Unit, 25 n, 46, 66

housing, 65

Murray, Arthur, 27, 54

National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics

(NACA), , 3, 7, 14, see also Langley, Lewis,

Dryden

Navy, U.S., xii, 3-4, 54

Navy technical mission to Europe, 29

North American Aviation, 37

P2B-1S, xii, 16, 29 ill., 32, 34, 36, 40-41 ill.,

 42 ill.-46, 44 ill., 49, 108, 119, 129-132

Explosion of number four engine in, 44-45

P-38, xii, 3, 23

P-40 Warhawk, 23

P-51 Mustang, 23

Paperclip, Operation, 47 n

Payne, Richard E., 42 ill.

Peele, James R., 90-91

Philippine Sea, battle of, 37

Phillips, William S., 59

Pitch-up, 24-25, 31, 35, 48 ff., 98, 99

Pressure suit, 43, 51, 80, 109-115, 124, 133-

135

Raczkowski, Thomas J., 39

Reaction Motors, Inc., 29, 47, 86, 143-149

Research airplanes, color for, 116

Rogers Dry Lake, 17 ill., 76, 96

Root, L. Eugene, 4, 29

Ruseckas, Joe, 51n, 113

Russell, Charles W., 42

Russell, John W., 47, 55

San Jacinto, 36

Santner, F. A., 113

Schneider, Edward T., xii, 1, 28

Sjoberg, Sigurd A., 24-25

Smith, A. M. O., 5, 29

Smith, R. G., 4, 6

Soulé, Hartley A., 64

Sound, speed of, xii

Stack, John, 3

Stalling, 48

Static stability and instability, 54 n

Sullican, J. E., 112

Supersonic yaw, see High-speed instability

Swept wings, 4, 28-29, 48, 57

Szalai, Kenneth, 1, 58-59

TBM Avenger, 36-37

Technological revolution, 31

Tipton, Joseph L., 42 ill, 43-45

Torpedo-Bomber Air Group VT-51, 36

Transonic speed range, xi, 3, 23-24, 28, 29

Trapnell, Frederick, 60

Truax, Robert, 47

Truszynski, Gerald M., 47 n

Turndrup, Don, 40

Van Every, Kermit, 30

Vensel, Joseph, 12 ill., 25, 38-39, 42, 50

von Braun, Wernher, 47

Walker, Joseph A., 39, 40-41, 42 ill., 60, 141

Westinghouse J34 jet engine, 29-30, 52

Williams, Esther, 56

Williams, Walter C., xii, 11, 13 ill., 25, 38, 46,

116-117, 124, 126-128

Wind tunnels, 2, 28-29

Wing slats, fences, leading-edge extensions,

and flaps, 30, 33, 35 ill., 48 ill.-49, 101

Woods, Robert, 4

Wright flyer, 57

X-airplanes, 58

X-1, see XS-1

X-1A, 36, 40, 54

X-1B, 40, 152

X-1D, 54

X-1E, 7, 20 ill., 40, 152

X-2, see XS-2

X-3, 37

X-4, 36, 37, 52, 123

X-5, 36, 37, 123, 127

X-15, 37, 54, 58

XF-92A, 37, 58, 123

XLR-8 (Reaction Motors 6000C4) rocket

 engine, 29, 47, 124-125

modifications for Mach 2 flight, 55, 86,

 136-140

Improved version, 143-149, 151-152

XP-42, 57
156

XS-2, 4, 5, 13, 32, 37, 51, 54

XS-1, xii, 3-4, 7, 15 ill., 16, 17 ill., 18-19 ill.,

 20, 25-26, 37

air launch techniques, 48, 49, 118-120

all-movable horizontal stabilizer, 49 n, 56-

 57

comparison of straight wing with D-558-2’s

swept wing, 52

Yeager, Chuck, 15, 17 ill., 27, 33, 54, 56, 119

YF-92A, misprint for XF-92A, 123

Zero-zero ejection seat (in reverse), 39

Zuikaku (Japanese carrier), 37
157

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(NASA SP-4012, 1988).

Ezell, Linda Neuman. NASA Historical Data Book, Volume III: Programs and Projects, 1969-1978.

(NASA SP-4012, 1988).

Gawdiak, Ihor Y., with Fedor, Helen. Compilers. NASA Historical Data Book, Volume IV: NASA

Resources, 1969-1978. (NASA SP-4012, 1994).
158

Astronautics and Aeronautics, 1969: Chronology of Science, Technology, and Policy. (NASA

SP-4014, 1970).

Astronautics and Aeronautics, 1970: Chronology of Science, Technology, and Policy. (NASA

SP-4015, 1972).

Astronautics and Aeronautics, 1971: Chronology of Science, Technology, and Policy. (NASA

SP-4016, 1972).

Astronautics and Aeronautics, 1972: Chronology of Science, Technology, and Policy. (NASA

SP-4017, 1974).

Astronautics and Aeronautics, 1973: Chronology of Science, Technology, and Policy. (NASA

SP-4018, 1975).

Astronautics and Aeronautics, 1974: Chronology of Science, Technology, and Policy. (NASA

SP-4019, 1977).

Astronautics and Aeronautics, 1975: Chronology of Science, Technology, and Policy. (NASA

SP-4020, 1979).

Astronautics and Aeronautics, 1976: Chronology of Science, Technology, and Policy. (NASA

SP-4021, 1984).

Astronautics and Aeronautics, 1977: Chronology of Science, Technology, and Policy. (NASA

SP-4022, 1986).

Astronautics and Aeronautics, 1978: Chronology of Science, Technology, and Policy. (NASA

SP-4023, 1986).

Astronautics and Aeronautics, 1979-1984: Chronology of Science, Technology, and Policy. (NASA

SP-4024, 1988).

Astronautics and Aeronautics, 1985: Chronology of Science, Technology, and Policy. (NASA

SP-4025, 1990).

Noordung, Hermann. The Problem of Space Travel: The Rocket Motor. Stuhlinger, Ernst, and

Hunley, J.D., with Garland, Jennifer. Editor. (NASA SP-4026, 1995).

Astronautics and Aeronautics, 1986-1990: A Chronology. (NASA SP-4027, 1997).

Management Histories, NASA SP-4100:

Rosholt, Robert L. An Administrative History of NASA, 1958-1963. (NASA SP-4101, 1966).

Levine, Arnold S. Managing NASA in the Apollo Era. (NASA SP-4102, 1982).

Roland, Alex. Model Research: The National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics, 1915-1958.

(NASA SP-4103, 1985).

Fries, Sylvia D. NASA Engineers and the Age of Apollo. (NASA SP-4104, 1992).

Glennan, T. Keith. The Birth of NASA: The Diary of T. Keith Glennan. Hunley, J.D. Editor.

(NASA SP-4105, 1993).
159

Seamans, Robert C., Jr. Aiming at Targets: The Autobiography of Robert C. Seamans, Jr. (NASA

SP-4106, 1996)

Project Histories, NASA SP-4200:

Swenson, Loyd S., Jr., Grimwood, James M., and Alexander, Charles C. This New Ocean: A

History of Project Mercury. (NASA SP-4201, 1966).

Green, Constance McL., and Lomask, Milton. Vanguard: A History. (NASA SP-4202, 1970; rep.

ed. Smithsonian Institution Press, 1971).

Hacker, Barton C., and Grimwood, James M. On Shoulders of Titans: A History of Project Gemini.

(NASA SP-4203, 1977).

Benson, Charles D. and Faherty, William Barnaby. Moonport: A History of Apollo Launch

Facilities and Operations. (NASA SP-4204, 1978).

Brooks, Courtney G., Grimwood, James M., and Swenson, Loyd S., Jr. Chariots for Apollo: A

History of Manned Lunar Spacecraft. (NASA SP-4205, 1979).

Bilstein, Roger E. Stages to Saturn: A Technological History of the Apollo/Saturn Launch

Vehicles. (NASA SP-4206, 1980).

SP-4207 not published.

Compton, W. David, and Benson, Charles D. Living and Working in Space: A History of Skylab.

(NASA SP-4208, 1983).

Ezell, Edward Clinton, and Ezell, Linda Neuman. The Partnership: A History of the ApolloSoyuz Test Project. (NASA SP-4209, 1978).

Hall, R. Cargill. Lunar Impact: A History of Project Ranger. (NASA SP-4210, 1977).

Newell, Homer E. Beyond the Atmosphere: Early Years of Space Science. (NASA SP-4211,

1980).

Ezell, Edward Clinton, and Ezell, Linda Neuman. On Mars: Exploration of the Red Planet,

1958-1978. (NASA SP-4212, 1984).

Pitts, John A. The Human Factor: Biomedicine in the Manned Space Program to 1980.

(NASA SP-4213, 1985).

Compton, W. David. Where No Man Has Gone Before: A History of Apollo Lunar Exploration

Missions. (NASA SP-4214, 1989).

Naugle, John E. First Among Equals: The Selection of NASA Space Science Experiments. (NASA

SP-4215, 1991).

Wallace, Lane E. Airborne Trailblazer: Two Decades with NASA Langley’s Boeing 737 Flying

Laboratory. (NASA SP-4216, 1994).

Butrica, Andrew J. Editor. Beyond the Ionosphere: Fifty Years of Satellite Communication . (NASA

SP-4217, 1997).
Butrica, Andrews J. To See the Unseen: A History of Planetary Radar Astronomy. (NASASP4218, 1996).

Mack, Pamela E. Editor. From Engineering Science to Big Science: The NACA and NASA Collier

Trophy Research Project Winners. (NASA SP-4219, 1998).

Reed, R. Dale. With Lister, Darlene. Wingless Flight: The Lifting Body Story. (NASA SP-4220,

1997).

Center Histories, NASA SP-4300:

Rosenthal, Alfred. Venture into Space: Early Years of Goddard Space Flight Center. (NASA

SP-4301, 1985).

Hartman, Edwin, P. Adventures in Research: A History of Ames Research Center, 1940-1965.

(NASA SP-4302, 1970).

Hallion, Richard P. On the Frontier: Flight Research at Dryden, 1946-1981. (NASA SP- 4303,

1984).

Muenger, Elizabeth A. Searching the Horizon: A History of Ames Research Center, 1940-1976.

(NASA SP-4304, 1985).

Hansen, James R. Engineer in Charge: A History of the Langley Aeronautical Laboratory,

1917-1958. (NASA SP-4305, 1987).

Dawson, Virginia P. Engines and Innovation: Lewis Laboratory and American Propulsion

Technology. (NASA SP-4306, 1991).

Dethloff, Henry C. “Suddenly Tomorrow Came...”: A History of the Johnson Space Center.

(NASA SP-4307, 1993).

Hansen, James R. Spaceflight Revolution: NASA Langley Research Center from Sputnik to Apollo.

(NASA SP-4308, 1995).

Wallace, Lane E. Flights of Discovery: 50 Years at the NASA Dryden Flight Research Center.

(NASA SP-4309, 1996).

Herring, Mack R. Way Station to Space: A History of the John C. Stennis Space Center. (NASA

SP-4310, 1997).

Wallace, Harold D., Jr. Wallops Station and the Creation of the American Space Program. (NASA

SP-4311, 1997).

General Histories, NASA SP-4400:

Corliss, William R. NASA Sounding Rockets, 1958-1968: A Historical Summary. (NASA SP-4401,

1971).

Wells, Helen T., Whiteley, Susan H., and Karegeannes, Carrie. Origins of NASA Names. (NASA

SP-4402, 1976).

Anderson, Frank W., Jr. Orders of Magnitude: A History of NACA and NASA, 1915-1980. (NASA

SP-4403, 1981).

160
Sloop, John L. Liquid Hydrogen as a Propulsion Fuel, 1945-1959. (NASA SP-4404, 1978).

Roland, Alex. A Spacefaring People: Perspectives on Early Spaceflight. (NASA SP-4405, 1985).

Bilstein, Roger E. Orders of Magnitude: A History of the NACA and NASA, 1915-1990. (NASA

SP-4406, 1989).

Logsdon, John M. Editor. With Lear, Linda J., Warren-Findley, Jannelle, Williamson, Ray A.,

and Day, Dwayne A. Exploring the Unknown: Selected Documents in the History of the

U.S. Civil Space Program, Volume I, Organizing for Exploration. (NASA SP-4407, 1995).

Logsdon, John M. Editor. With Day, Dwayne A., and Launius, Roger D. Exploring the Unknown: Selected Documents in the History of the U.S. Civil Space Program, Volume II,

Relations with Other Organizations. (NASA SP-4407, 1996).

Logsdon, John M. Editor. With Launius, Roger D., Onkst, David H., and Garber, Stephen.

Exploring the Unknown: Selected Documents in the History of the U.S. Civil Space

Program, Volume III, Using Space. (NASA SP-4407, 1998).

161