The Rocket Man and Other Extraordinary Characters in the History of Flight DaviD Darling A Oneworld Book First published by Oneworld Publications 2013 Copyright © David Darling 2013 The moral right of David Darling to be identified as the Author of this work has been asserted by him in accordance with the Copyright, Designs, and Patents Act 1988 All rights reserved Copyright under Berne Convention A CIP record for this title is available from the British Library ISBN 978-1-78074-297-7 eISBN 978-1-78074-298-4 Typeset by Tetragon, London Printed and bound by CPI Mackays Ltd, Croydon, UK Oneworld Publications 10 Bloomsbury Street, London WC1B 3SR With love to Emily and Lewis, who’ll soon be flying high, too Contents List of Illustrations ix Introduction xiii 1. The Oddest Couple in the Air 1 2. Insanity in a Pinstripe 15 3. Black Ace 29 4. Dances with Death 41 5. Under Pressure 53 6. Flying in the Face of Reason 65 7. John Stapp and his Incredible Sleds 79 8. The X-Men 95 9. Hostile Skies and Amazing Leaps 111 10. Tested to the Extreme 125 11. Break-up at Mach 3 141 12. Fantastic Voyage 153 13. Jetman 165 14. Falling Hero 177 Further Reading 187 Index 191 List of Illustrations 1 ‘Blanchard’s Balloon’ from Wonderful Balloon Ascents (1870) by Fulgence 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 balloon during her flight in Milan, Italy, in 1811 to celebrate Napoleon’s 42nd birthday. Credit: US Library of Congress, Prints and Photographs division. 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, 28 June 1912. Source: US Library of Congress. 7 Raymond Collishaw in RAF uniform (1919). Credit: RAF. ix List of Illustrations 8 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 Federal Government/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 Pursuit Plane (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: US Air 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 aboard Sonic Wind No. 1. Lower: Sonic Wind No. 1 hits the water trough that 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 Sonic Wind No. 1. Credit: US Air Force. 20 The Bell Aircraft Corporation X-1 with shock-wave pattern visible in its exhaust plume. Credit: NASA. x List of Illustrations 21 Chuck Yeager standing alongside the Bell X-1, which he nick- named ‘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 Cooper Jr. Credit: NASA. 29 Alan Shepard poised on the step of the Johnsville centrifuge prior to 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 Lewis Research Center in 1960. Credit: NASA. 32 An SR-71 Blackbird flies over the snow-covered southern Sierra Nevada Mountains of California after being refuelled by a US Air Force tanker during a 1994 flight. Credit: Jeff Darling & USAF/ Judson Brohmer. xi List of Illustrations 33 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 Alps over 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 Introduction You have to be slightly crazy to want to fly – especially if no one’s done it before, or gone as high, or as fast, or as far, as you intend. As a species we’re about as well suited to flight as seahorses are to galloping on land. But what we lack personally in the way of aerial adaptations we make up for in imagina- tion. Our Stone Age ancestors must have watched birds take to the air and soar upwards, maybe with a tinge of envy, and wondered what it would be like. Eventually, some people began to wonder how it might actually be done. Pioneering aviators are a strange breed – a mix of marginal sanity, starry-eyedness, practical savvy, and nerves of steel. It’s a 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 the attention-seeker. There’s an elegance to ballooning – the slow, effortless, majestic rise into the air, allowing plenty of time to wave to those less fortunate souls still confined by gravity to the ground. The age of the glider and then of the first powered planes appealed to a very different type of character. There’s nothing xiii Introduction romantic about clinging to, or being perched precariously on, a seemingly ramshackle assortment of wood and canvas, hoping that after a brief spell in level flight you make it to the ground with no worse than a few cuts and bruises. The first heavier-than-air contraptions were desperately dangerous affairs, as likely to end in wreckage of both man and machine as in triumph. The folk who built and flew them were a fusion of courage, ingenuity, and conviction – calculated risk-takers willing to put their lives on the line to test their private theories. The German Otto Lilienthal, or the ‘Glider King’ as he became known, was a classic example. He made and tested a variety of his own craft at the end of the nineteenth century, and even constructed an artificial hill near Berlin as a launch pad. Between 1891 and 1896, he and his brother Gustav flew about 2,000 times, risking life and limb every time they leapt off a slope. Eventually, inevitably perhaps, Otto’s luck ran out: his glider stalled, and he fell more than fifty feet, snapping his spine. He died the next day while uttering the final words: ‘Kleine Opfer müssen gebracht werden’ (‘Small sacrifices must be made’). In an age when powered flight was moving from concept to reality, the attitude was that if you had an idea you should fly with it, or die trying, and many did both. What kind of chutzpah it took to get behind the controls of an untested, rickety plane back in those days is hard to fathom. There wasn’t yet much money to be made from it, nor any real practical application. But those key ingredients to progress would come soon enough. After the Wright brothers made their historic breakthrough in 1903, flying machines evolved with incred- ible speed. At the start of the First World War, biplanes driven by piston engines were used to carry out scouting missions over enemy territory. A couple of years later, they’d become xiv Introduction manoeuvrable enough for hair-raising air-to-air combat and the age of the flying ace had arrived. These aerial superstars were a mixed bunch. Some took extreme risks and were spectacular, aerobatic pilots. Others were more methodical and relied on clever tactics and good marksmanship for their success. By the end of the First World War, the commercial potential of the aeroplane was blindingly obvious to everyone involved in flight, and the period between the world wars is often referred to as the Golden Age of Aviation.