Transcriber’s Note: Italicized text is surrounded by underscores:
_italics_.
ALWAYS ANOTHER DAWN ►
Always Another Dawn
THE STORY OF A ROCKET TEST PILOT
_by A. Scott Crossfield
with Clay Blair, Jr._
CLEVELAND AND NEW YORK
[Illustration: (Colophon)]
THE WORLD PUBLISHING COMPANY
_Published by_ The World Publishing Company
2231 West 110th Street, Cleveland 2, Ohio
_Published simultaneously in Canada by_
Nelson, Foster & Scott Ltd.
Library of Congress Catalog Card Number: 60-14641
FIRST EDITION
WP1060
Copyright ©1960 by A. Scott Crossfield and Clay Blair, Jr. All rights
reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form without
written permission from the publisher, except for brief passages
included in a review appearing in a newspaper or magazine. Printed in
the United States of America.
To Joseph, who knows why
_Contents_
(_Illustrations will be found following pages 134 and 294._)
FOREWORD 15
A NOTE ON SPEED 16
1. “A Modern-Day Lindbergh” 19
2. The Gypsy Caravan 25
3. A Sense of Urgency 38
4. Excitement and Frustration 45
5. An Unusual Heritage 53
6. An Isolated Environment 62
7. “Take Her Up and Try a Spin” 72
8. Change and Challenge 82
9. Manhood and Maturity 89
10. No Penalty for Being Late 99
11. How Dark the Clouds 109
12. A Short Man with Santa Claus Eyebrows 119
13. “Barefoot Boy with Cheek” 125
14. The Need for Speed 135
15. Disaster on the Race Track 145
16. Bright Light Under a Bush 154
17. Light in the Open 162
18. “Fastest Man on Earth” 171
19. “Leaf in a Tempest” 180
20. “Please Come to a Complete Stop” 190
21. End of the Line 200
22. End of an Era 209
23. Secrets in the Cafeteria 217
24. Ullage and Capsules 226
25. Girdles, Brassieres, and Shattered Sinuses 234
26. The Agricultural Approach 244
27. A Tornado Named Stormy 246
28. Wilting Straws in Plaster of Paris 253
29. Eyes Toward Space 262
30. Muting the Cassandras 271
31. Working in a Fish Bowl 280
32. Time for Extraordinary Action 289
33. Circus Day 297
34. A Carnival at Dawn 307
35. Smoke in the Cockpit 317
36. The Reluctant Dragon 327
37. Engulfed in Disappointment 338
38. “She Blew Sky High” 346
39. The Old Pro 359
40. Bad News with the Good 367
41. “You Have a Fire!” 376
42. Minor Miracles 388
43. “The Real Significance” 399
44. “Prophecies of the Next Age” 407
CHRONOLOGY 411
INDEX 415
_Foreword_
Long ago at Edwards, I heard a story that stuck in my mind. Two small
boys, the sons of pilots, were discussing their fathers. One said
to the other: “Aw, your father _can’t_ be a test pilot. He hasn’t
written a book.”
Now I have joined the clan, but, I hope, with a difference.
Inevitably I have reminisced, as, it seems, all pilots must. But the
intent of this book is broader than mere memoirs. Put simply, the
objective is to restate an old principle: that not talk but action is
the key to man’s progress, and in this age, freedom from enslavement.
A. SCOTT CROSSFIELD
_Los Angeles, Calif.
August 1960_
_A Note on Speed_
We have used the modern method of expressing aviation speed--the Mach
number. Mach 1.0 is the speed at which sound travels through the air.
On an average day at sea level, the speed of sound, or Mach 1.0, is
about 760 miles an hour. At higher, colder altitudes on the same day,
it is less. For example, at 35,000 feet it might be only 660 miles an
hour. Since most of the flying described in this account is at high
altitude, Mach 1.0 is, on an average day, about 660 miles an hour.
The speed is also expressed in terms of fractions of a Mach number.
Thus Mach .5 is half of Mach 1 or half of 660 miles an hour--about
330 miles an hour. Speeds above Mach 1.0 are also expressed in whole
Mach numbers and fractions of Mach numbers. For example, Mach 1.5 is
the equivalent of one and a half times the speed of sound, or about
1,000 miles an hour. Mach 2.0--or twice the speed of sound--is twice
660 miles an hour, or about 1,320 miles an hour. Mach 2.5 is about
1,650 miles an hour. Mach 3 is about 2,000 miles an hour.
ALWAYS ANOTHER DAWN ►
“There is no liberty except the liberty of someone
making his way towards something.”
--ANTOINE DE SAINT EXUPÉRY
CHAPTER 1 ►
“_A Modern-Day Lindbergh_”
A misty rain, typical of Seattle in the spring, fell across the lush
green campus of the University of Washington that afternoon. It was
1947. I don’t recall the exact date because that whole period of my
life remains fixed in my mind as a steady, uninterrupted blur of work
and study. I do remember that as I drove through the narrow streets
setting apart the ivy-smothered Tudor-Gothic buildings, I proceeded
with caution. My car was a veteran of many campaigns in Seattle
weather and traffic. It was barely hanging together.
When I pulled into my special parking place behind the University’s
wind tunnel, I was quietly angry. I had just come from an advanced
class in aeronautical engineering under Professor Frank K. Kirsten, a
brilliant but crotchety old martinet. He had devoted the lecture to
a discourse on the jet engine, which, he held, had no future because
its fuel consumption was too great. I had challenged his assertions
and argued forcibly, concluding, with some heat, that other experts
in aviation had made such dogmatic statements, only to have them
later completely disproved. “Take Monteith,” I had said (actually
quoting Kirsten). “He predicted the cantilever wing would not be
practicable. Yet almost every airplane flying today has a cantilever
wing.” In the aviation world, as anywhere, I concluded, everything is
subject to change. We must believe this.
I walked through the power room to a door marked: “Chief Wind
Tunnel Operator,” stashed my textbook and notes in a desk drawer,
and then scanned the bulletin board. Posted over the tunnel’s
Schedule-of-Operations sheet was a photograph of a smashed-up
automobile, with “Guess Who?” scrawled underneath. It was an earlier
car I owned, a veteran of several brief but devastating engagements.
It occurred to me then, for the first time, that both my problem cars
had been painted green. I recalled an old race-track superstition
against green cars. That was the trouble, I was sure. Overdriving
my car and its brakes in Seattle streets couldn’t be the reason, of
course.
The wind tunnel of the University of Washington was one of the
first--and finest--modern wind tunnels built in the United States.
Many major aircraft companies, such as Boeing and McDonnell,
contracted work to the tunnel. The tunnel tests and analyses were
carried out by students under faculty supervision. I had worked in
the tunnel part-time since returning to the University in the spring
of 1946. We were then engaged in tests on the Boeing B-47 bomber.
Many years later the plane, bought in vast quantity, would become the
backbone of the Strategic Air Command, and a direct descendant, the
Boeing 707, would become the first U. S. commercial jet airliner.
In 1947 the plane’s concept--sharply swept cantilever wings, six
jet engines slung on pods beneath the wing--was controversial and
exciting.
I joined a fellow student, Joe Tymczyszyn, near the tunnel control
panel and greeted him above the noise, the great rushing of wind,
and the steady humming of electric generators. Through a glass port
mounted on the bottom of the big wind tube, I could see a silvery
model of the B-47 rigidly fixed on a pylon. Sensitive force-measuring
devices supporting the pylon below the chamber showed the effects of
the blast on a row of meters on the control panel. Tym photographed
the meter readings every few moments on a special recorder. The panel
was marked “Secret” since Boeing and the Air Force considered the
data classified.
I plopped into a chair and lighted a cigarette. Then Tym and I fell
into avid conversation on the topic that bound us as friends and
co-workers: aviation. Tym had a wide acquaintance in aviation. He
always had some bit of gossip or vital news to impart.
“Did you hear about Slick Goodlin?” he began. “They say he’s
reluctant to fly the X-1.” Slick was a Bell Aircraft test pilot.
The X-1 was then the sensation of the aviation world--a tiny,
bullet-shaped craft fitted with a rocket engine. It was built for
research purposes, to provide high-speed flight data so that we,
and others in aviation, could get information we then could not
get from wind tunnels. In those days, when we pumped air through a
tunnel close to the speed of sound, strange things happened. The air
“choked” and the flow was distorted. As a result, most wind-tunnel
data near the speed of sound were suspect at a time when they were
vitally needed. The X-1 had sufficient power to fly faster than the
speed of sound.
“He’s reluctant to fly it?” I asked.
“Yeah,” Tym said. “They say he wants a lot more money.”
Few could blame him. The rocket engine of the X-1, a complex device
which burned a fuel combination almost as explosive as dynamite, had
never been flown wide open. Engineers were split about fifty-fifty
over what would happen structurally when the X-1 reached the speed
of sound. Some said the plane would disintegrate; others, especially
engineers at Bell, said it would not. In any case, it might be a
risky flight. But the rewards, other than money, would be great.
“Hell,” I said. “The man who flies that plane through the sonic
barrier will be a modern-day Lindbergh.” Tym nodded agreement and
returned to his log.
For the rest of the afternoon I was busy putting together the data
from the wind-tunnel meters. But my mind was fixed on the X-1 and I
let my imagination soar. For a test pilot, the X-1 was the absolute
ultimate. There was nothing like it in the past; it would be years
before anything else surpassed it. I was still thinking about the
plane when I got home that evening. Before dinner, when my wife,
Alice, and I sat down for our usual martini, I was lost in thought.
“What’s eating you?” she asked. Alice is a native of Seattle. Like
many people from that part of the country, typical of Norwegian
descent, she is usually quiet and straight to the point. After
four years of marriage she had come to terms with my obsession for
aviation and rarely questioned either my progress or my mood. I
didn’t encourage it.
“Oh, nothing,” I said.
I was mentally composing a letter I intended to write to Bell
Aircraft proposing that I be named the new test pilot of the X-1.
After dinner, while Alice was washing the dishes, I sat down to my
battered portable typewriter and carefully pecked out the letter,
stressing my qualifications:
Age: 26. Flying time: 2500 hours, single-engine, World War II Navy
instructor and fighter pilot. Special flying: lead pilot, Seattle
Naval Reserve stunt team (which could be matched against any stunt
team in the country, I added). Education--prewar: three quarters,
University of Washington, basic freshman engineering. Postwar: five
semesters, aeronautical engineering (aimed at a Master’s degree).
Practical experience: prewar, production expediter, Boeing plant,
Seattle; postwar, partner in aircraft accessories firm (ash trays;
serving tables); University of Washington wind tunnel. Temperament:
reliable, family-man type; even disposition, cool in emergencies.
Salary? I would fly the X-1 for nothing, if necessary.
It occurred to me, as I reflected over this letter, that anyone
outside the aviation world would have viewed this brief summary of my
life as the work of a single-minded zealot. This was not precisely
so. My interests ranged wide enough--from philosophy to farming.
Yet it was a fact that, since boyhood, almost every waking moment
had been devoted, directly or indirectly, to the single purpose
of scoring a mark in the aviation world. It was not a spectacular
record I sought--a round-the-world flight, a speed dash, or a new
altitude. Mine was a more serious bent. I wanted to follow in the
footsteps of the aviation giants: Boeing’s Edward (“Eddie”) Allen
and the Air Force’s James H. (“Jimmy”) Doolittle, and the like. They
were both serious scientists and superb pilots, a rare combination
and, in these days of specialization, a rapidly disappearing breed.
More specifically, my goal was to participate in the design and
construction of the most advanced craft man could conceive and then
take it into the air and fly it.
This may strike many as a heady ambition for so young a man. It
never seemed that way to me. On this earth, at least, I believe man
is master of his own fate. Within his God-given physical and mental
limitations, he can do what he wants to do. I believe the secret
is to work intelligently, economically, and steadily toward a set
goal. I must have been about six years old when I made up my mind
what I wanted. Shortly after that, I was struck by a disease that
kept me bed-ridden, off and on, for almost five years. As a result,
I was told I would never fly. My mind shut out these predictions and
stubbornly plotted the future. There are many hurdles along the way.
I am scaling them, one way or another. Anyone with determination can
do the same, I think.
That night when I drafted the letter to Bell I was still far from
completing what I believed to be an adequate foundation. For one
thing, my education, interrupted by the war, was considerably short
of my design. Yet I must admit that at heart I am also a gambler.
If I were lucky enough, I knew, the X-1 could catapult me directly
toward the very position I sought. The advanced education could come
later, with experience. Besides, who could resist the temptation to
fly the X-1, if there was a chance?
Bell must have received many such letters from adventurous pilots. I
imagine they were all passed on to the public relations department
and from there to a handy waste-paper basket. I never received a
reply. Unknown to me, and to others who may have written, the Air
Force had already picked Goodlin’s replacement. Shortly after I
mailed my application, I read in the papers that Air Force Captain
Charles Yeager was assigned the job. In October, 1947, he flew the
X-1 through the sonic barrier with ease--and overnight became the
new Lindbergh of the aviation world.
I felt not the slightest tinge of envy over Yeager’s feat. On
reflection I considered it just as well that my letter had not
been answered. My time had obviously not come. Not for one minute,
however, did I doubt that it would. I buckled down at the University,
working doggedly toward my Master’s degree. I supplemented my meager
G.I. stipend with the small returns from the aircraft accessories
business and my work in the wind tunnel, where, in time, I was
named student boss of operations. I kept my flying sharply honed in
exercises with my Naval Reserve unit. So as not to tempt fate further
on the streets, I painted my battered car bright blue with gratifying
results.