The Rocket Man - Oneworld Publications

TheRocket Manand Other ExtraordinaryCharacters in the History of FlightDavid Darling

A Oneworld BookFirst published by Oneworld Publications 2013Copyright David Darling 2013The moral right of David Darling to be identified as the Author ofthis work has been asserted by him in accordance with the Copyright,Designs, and Patents Act 1988All rights reservedCopyright under Berne ConventionA CIP record for this title is available from the British LibraryISBN 978-1-78074-297-7eISBN 978-1-78074-298-4Typeset by Tetragon, LondonPrinted and bound by CPI Mackays Ltd, Croydon, UKOneworld Publications10 Bloomsbury Street, London WC1B 3SR

With love toEmily and Lewis,who’ll soon be flying high, too

ContentsList of Illustrations Introduction ixxiii1.The Oddest Couple in the Air 12.Insanity in a Pinstripe 153.Black Ace 294.Dances with Death 415.Under Pressure 536.Flying in the Face of Reason 657.John Stapp and his Incredible Sleds 798.The X-Men 959.Hostile Skies and Amazing Leaps 11110.Tested to the Extreme 12511.Break-up at Mach 3 14112.Fantastic Voyage 15313.Jetman 16514.Falling Hero 177Further Reading 187Index 191

List of Illustrations1 ‘Blanchard’s Balloon’ from Wonderful Balloon Ascents (1870) byFulgence Marion (pseudonym of Camille Flammarion). Source:Wikipedia/public domain.2 An early demonstration of the Montgolfier brothers’ balloon.Source: Wikipedia/public domain.3 Sophie Blanchard standing in the decorated basket of her balloonduring her flight in Milan, Italy, in 1811 to celebrate Napoleon’s 42ndbirthday. Credit: US Library of Congress, Prints and Photographsdivision.4 Lincoln Beachey seated at the controls of his plane (1913). Credit:US Library of Congress.5 Lincoln Beachey’s flight under Niagara Falls Bridge, 27 June 1911.Credit: Photo Speciality Co. (1911).6 Lincoln Beachey in his plane racing against Barney Oldfield, 28June 1912. Source: US Library of Congress.7 Raymond Collishaw in RAF uniform (1919). Credit: RAF.ix

List of Illustrations8 Royal Flying Corps or Royal Air Force Sopwith 1½ Strutters.Credit: HM Government, Crown Copyright (expired).9 Sopwith Triplane. Credit: Jeff Darling.10 The Curtiss JN-4 (‘Jenny’). Credit: Jeff Darling.11 Ormer Locklear ‘wing walking’, c.1919. Credit: US FederalGovernment/public domain.12 Wiley Post and Harold Gatty. Credit: German Federal Archive.13 The Winnie Mae on display in the National Air and Space Museum.Credit: Jarek Tuszynski.14 Howard Hughes standing in front of his new Boeing Army PursuitPlane (Boeing 100A) in Inglewood, California in the 1940s. Source:US Library of Congress.15 The first prototype of the Hughes XF-11, c.1946. Credit: USAir Force.16 The H-4 Hercules, better known as the ‘Spruce Goose’. Credit:Jeff Darling & Federal Aviation Administration.17 John Stapp rides the Gee Wizard at Muroc Army Airfield. Credit:US Air Force.18 Upper: Stapp is prepared for his record-breaking run aboardSonic Wind No. 1. Lower: Sonic Wind No. 1 hits the water troughthat slowed it from 632 miles per hour to rest in little over a second.Credit: US Air Force.19 Stapp’s face shows the effect of a high-speed trip aboard SonicWind No. 1. Credit: US Air Force.20 The Bell Aircraft Corporation X-1 with shock-wave pattern visiblein its exhaust plume. Credit: NASA.x

List of Illustrations21 Chuck Yeager standing alongside the Bell X-1, which he nicknamed ‘Glamorous Glennis’ after his wife. Credit: US Air Force.22 Neil Armstrong next to the X-15. Credit: NASA.23 Joe Walker exiting his X-1A, cowboy style. Credit: NASA.24 Joe Walker after a flight of the X-15 #2. Credit: NASA.25 Joseph Kittinger’s record-breaking skydive from 102,800 feet(31,300 metres). Credit: US Air Force.26 Joe Kittinger and the recovery crew following his record-breaking jump.27 The Johnsville centrifuge. Courtesy: Johnsville Centrifuge &Science Museum.28 The Mercury Seven astronauts with a model of an Atlas rocket.Standing, left to right, are Alan B. Shepard Jr, Walter M. Schirra Jr,and John H. Glenn Jr; sitting, left to right, are Virgil I. Grissom, M.Scott Carpenter, Donald (‘Deke’) Slayton, and L. Gordon CooperJr. Credit: NASA.29 Alan Shepard poised on the step of the Johnsville centrifuge priorto a training run. Courtesy: Johnsville Centrifuge & Science Museum.30 The ‘Iron Maiden’, a device patented by R. Flannigan Gray.Credit: Johnsville Centrifuge & Science Museum.31 The MASTIF (Multiple Axis Space Test Inertia Facility) at LewisResearch Center in 1960. Credit: NASA.32 An SR-71 Blackbird flies over the snow-covered southern SierraNevada Mountains of California after being refuelled by a US AirForce tanker during a 1994 flight. Credit: Jeff Darling & USAF/Judson Brohmer.xi

List of Illustrations33 NASA’s SR-71 taking off from Dryden Flight Research Center.Credit: NASA.34 Voyager circling before landing at Edwards Air Force Base. Credit:NASA/Thomas Harrop.35 Voyager specifications. Credit: Jeff Darling.36 Yves Rossy, aka ‘Jetman’ or ‘Rocketman’, flying with his jet-propelled wing. Credit: Yves Rossy/Breitling.37 Aiguille du Midi (‘Needle of the South’) in the French Alpsover which Patrick de Gayardon flew in 1997. Credit: Wikipedia/Garrondo.38 Yves Rossy. Credit: Yves Rossy/Breitling.39 Rossy flying over the Grand Canyon. Credit: Yves Rossy/Breitling.40 Rossy flying in formation with two jets from the Breitling dem-onstration team. Credit: Yves Rossy/Breitling.41 BASE jumping from an antenna. Credit: Wikipedia.42 Steph Davis performing a BASE jump in a wingsuit. Credit:Wikipedia.43 A wingsuit flier in Holland. Credit: Vladimir Lysyuk/Jarno (Mc)Cordia.xii

IntroductionYou have to be slightly crazy to want to fly – especially if noone’s done it before, or gone as high, or as fast, or as far, asyou intend. As a species we’re about as well suited to flight asseahorses are to galloping on land. But what we lack personallyin the way of aerial adaptations we make up for in imagination. Our Stone Age ancestors must have watched birds taketo the air and soar upwards, maybe with a tinge of envy, andwondered what it would be like. Eventually, some people beganto wonder how it might actually be done.Pioneering aviators are a strange breed – a mix of marginalsanity, starry-eyedness, practical savvy, and nerves of steel. It’sa blend that makes for colourful, larger-than-life characters,and the history of aviation is chock-full of them.Each era has produced its own brand of personalities.The golden age of ballooning attracted the romantic and theattention-seeker. There’s an elegance to ballooning – the slow,effortless, majestic rise into the air, allowing plenty of time towave to those less fortunate souls still confined by gravity tothe ground.The age of the glider and then of the first powered planesappealed to a very different type of character. There’s nothingxiii

Introductionromantic about clinging to, or being perched precariouslyon, a seemingly ramshackle assortment of wood and canvas,hoping that after a brief spell in level flight you make it to theground with no worse than a few cuts and bruises. The firstheavier-than-air contraptions were desperately dangerousaffairs, as likely to end in wreckage of both man and machineas in triumph. The folk who built and flew them were a fusionof courage, ingenuity, and conviction – calculated risk-takerswilling to put their lives on the line to test their private theories.The German Otto Lilienthal, or the ‘Glider King’ as hebecame known, was a classic example. He made and tested avariety of his own craft at the end of the nineteenth century,and even constructed an artificial hill near Berlin as a launchpad. Between 1891 and 1896, he and his brother Gustav flewabout 2,000 times, risking life and limb every time they leaptoff a slope. Eventually, inevitably perhaps, Otto’s luck ran out:his glider stalled, and he fell more than fifty feet, snapping hisspine. He died the next day while uttering the final words: ‘KleineOpfer müssen gebracht werden’ (‘Small sacrifices must be made’).In an age when powered flight was moving from conceptto reality, the attitude was that if you had an idea you shouldfly with it, or die trying, and many did both. What kind ofchutzpah it took to get behind the controls of an untested,rickety plane back in those days is hard to fathom. There wasn’tyet much money to be made from it, nor any real practicalapplication. But those key ingredients to progress would comesoon enough. After the Wright brothers made their historicbreakthrough in 1903, flying machines evolved with incredible speed. At the start of the First World War, biplanes drivenby piston engines were used to carry out scouting missionsover enemy territory. A couple of years later, they’d becomexiv

Introductionmanoeuvrable enough for hair-raising air-to-air combat andthe age of the flying ace had arrived.These aerial superstars were a mixed bunch. Some tookextreme risks and were spectacular, aerobatic pilots. Otherswere more methodical and relied on clever tactics and goodmarksmanship for their success.By the end of the First World War, the commercial potentialof the aeroplane was blindingly obvious to everyone involved inflight, and the period between the world wars is often referredto as the Golden Age of Aviation. This was the era of the barnstormer, the wing walker, and the great air races in which speedrecords were smashed year after year. The skill-cum-madnessextended to dancing, target shooting, and playing tennis onthe wings, hundreds of feet up, while in the background thecivil aviation industry began to flex its muscle.As time went on, planes flew not only further but fasterand, especially during dogfights, in terrifyingly high-speedmanoeuvres. Pilots were subjected to more and more g-forces or‘gees’ (one gee being the force felt due to gravity at the Earth’ssurface). Even before 1920, aviators knew about the menace ofG-LOC – g-induced loss of consciousness – in which the plane’sacceleration, in a tight turn, for instance, could cause the bloodto drain from the head and induce a brief but potentially fatalfaint. G-LOC came to the fore with the development of fastmonoplanes just before and during the Second World War, andthen the arrival of the jet. To study its effects and develop ameans to counter it, subjects were whirled around in centrifugesand put through all kinds of other stomach-churning tests.Powerful jets and rocket planes took humans past the speedof sound, then Mach 2 and Mach 3. Test pilots, with pantherlike instincts and reactions, flew to the edge of space in vehiclesxv

Introductionwhose wings were built for extreme speed not stability. Some ofthese pilots also ballooned into near-airless blackness, tens ofmiles above the ground, and then leapt out of their crampedmetal gondolas, with the very curvature of the Earth in view,plunging through far sub-zero temperatures until finally theyopened their parachutes, as they crossed into the denser regionsof the atmosphere to break their fall.Today there are new heroes and heroines of the air: balloonists and pilots of ultra-light planes who circumnavigatethe globe in journeys lasting days or weeks; astronauts whonot only fly faster than anyone through the atmosphere butalso hurtle far beyond it to orbit the planet or land on otherworlds. And still there are the eccentrics, the one-of-a-kinds,who are willing to strap a rocket pack to their back and fly withnothing else other than wings attached to their arms, like thebirdmen of old.xvi