14 October 1977: On the Thirtieth Anniversary of his historic supersonic flight in the Bell X-1, Brigadier General Charles E. (“Chuck”) Yeager, U.S. Air Force (Retired), returned to Edwards Air Force Base where he flew a Lockheed F-104 Starfighter to Mach 1.5.
© 2016, Bryan R. Swopes
The Bridgeport Telegram reported:
Brief First Flight Made By CH-53A at Sikorsky
The Sikorsky-Marine Corps CH-53A, designed as the free world’s largest and fastest transport helicopter, took off for the first time Wednesday at the Sikorsky Aircraft plant here. The aircraft was hovered within the flight field in its preliminary phase of the test program.
The brief flight exceeded expectations and project engineers and pilots expressed satisfaction with the CH-53A’s overall performance. More than twice the forces expected in actual high-performance flight were induced during ground tests prior to flight with far better results than ever before experienced at this early stage of a test program. Tie-down tests, started during the summer to check for components, structure and systems function, also provided “very satisfactory” results.
The CH-53A will be capable of speed of more than 200 miles an hour and will carry payloads of up to nine tons. It is powered by two General Electric T-64-6 turboshaft engines of 2,850 horsepower each. It will be flown by a three-man crew and will carry 38 fully-equipped troops. For medical evacuation duties, the CH-53A will carry 24 patients.
—The Bridgeport Telegram, Vol. LXXIII, No, 250, Saturday, 17 October 1964, Page 3, Columns 6–7
The fuselage of the YCH-53A was similar in configuration to the smaller CH-3C (S-61R). It used the dynamic components from the CH-37 Mojave (S-56) and CH-54A Tarhe (S-64).
The Sikorsky CH-53A Sea Stallion is a twin-engine heavy-lift transport helicopter operated by two pilots. It is 88 feet, 2.4 inches (26.883 meters) with rotors turning. The fuselage is 67 feet, 2.4 inches (20.483 meters) long and 8 feet, 10 inches (2.692 meters) wide. The six-blade fully articulated main rotor is 72 feet, 2.7 inches (22.014 meters) in diameter and turns counterclockwise as seen from above. (The advancing blade is on the helicopter’s right.) Main rotor speed is 185 r.pm. The four-blade semi-articulated tail rotor has a diameter of 16 feet (4.877 meters) and is placed on the left side of the tail rotor pylon in a pusher configuration. It turns clockwise as seen from the helicopters left. (The advancing blade is below the axis of rotation.) Overall height (rotors turning) of the Sea Stallion is 24 feet, 10.8 inches (7.599 meters). The tail rotor speed is 792 r.p.m.
Two YCH-53A prototypes were built, followed by 139 CH-53A Sea Stallion production models.
The CH-53 was developed into the three-engine CH-53E Super Stallion. The current production variant is the CH-53K King Stallion.
© 2017 Bryan R. Swopes
14 October 1962: Major Richard Stephen (“Steve”) Heyser, a pilot with the 4028th Strategic Reconnaissance Squadron, 4080th Strategic Reconnaissance Wing, United States Air Force, boarded Item 342, his Top Secret reconnaissance airplane, at Edwards Air Force Base, California. Over the next seven hours he flew from Edwards to McCoy AFB, near Orlando, Florida, landing there at 0920 EST.
But first, Steve Heyser and Item 342 flew over the island of Cuba at an altitude of 72,500 feet (22,098 meters). Over the island for just seven minutes, Heyser used the airplane’s cameras to take some of the most important photographs of the Twentieth Century.
Item 342 was a Lockheed U-2F. Designed by Clarence L. (“Kelly”) Johnson at the “Skunk Works,” it was a very high altitude, single-seat, single-engine airplane built for the Central Intelligence Agency. Item 342 carried a U.S. Air Force number on its tail, 66675. This represented its serial number, 56-6675.
It had been built at Burbank, then its sub-assemblies were flown aboard a C-124 Globemaster transport to a secret facility at Groom Lake, Nevada, called “The Ranch,” where it was assembled and flown.
Originally a U-2A, Item 342 was modified to a U-2C, and then to a U-2F, capable of inflight refueling.
Major Heyser had been at Edwards AFB to complete training on the latest configuration when he was assigned to this mission.
Major Heyser’s photographs showed Russian SS-4 Sandal intermediate range nuclear-armed missiles being placed in Cuba, with SA-2 Guideline radar-guided surface-to-air anti-aircraft missile sites surrounding the nuclear missile sites.
President John F. Kennedy ordered a blockade of Cuba and demanded that Russia remove the missiles. Premier Nikita Khrushchev refused. The entire U.S. military was brought to readiness for immediate war. This was The Cuban Missile Crisis. World War III was imminent.
Richard S. Heyser died 6 October 2008.
© 2017, Bryan R. Swopes
14 October 1947: At approximately 10:00 a.m., a four-engine Boeing B-29 Superfortress heavy bomber, piloted by Major Robert L. Cardenas, took off from Muroc Air Force Base (now known as Edwards Air Force Base) in the high desert north of Los Angeles, California. The B-29’s bomb bay had been modified to carry the Bell XS-1, a rocket-powered airplane designed to investigate flight at speeds near the Speed of Sound (Mach 1).
Air Force test pilot Captain Charles Elwood (“Chuck”) Yeager, a World War II fighter ace, was the U.S. Air Force pilot for this project. The X-1 airplane had been previously flown by company test pilots Jack Woolams and Chalmers Goodlin. Two more X-1 aircraft were built by Bell, and the second, 46-063, had already begun its flight testing.
Captain Yeager had made three glide flights and this was to be his ninth powered flight. Like his P-51 Mustang fighters, he had named this airplane after his wife, Glamorous Glennis.
Bob Cardenas climbed to 20,000 feet (6,096 meters) and then put the B-29 into a shallow dive to gain speed. In his autobiography, Yeager wrote:
“One minute to drop. [Jack] Ridley flashed the word from the copilot’s seat in the mother ship. . . Major Cardenas, the driver, starts counting backwards from ten. C-r-r-ack. The bomb shackle release jolts you up from your seat, and as you sail out of the dark bomb bay the sun explodes in brightness. You’re looking at the sky. Wrong! You should have dropped level. The dive speed was too slow, and they dropped you in a nose-up stall. . .
“I fought it with the control wheel for about five hundred feet, and finally got her nose down. The moment we picked up speed I fired all four rocket chambers in rapid sequence. We climbed at .88 Mach. . . I turned off two rocket chambers. At 40,000 feet, we were still climbing at .92 Mach. Leveling off at 42,000 feet, I had thirty percent of my fuel, so I turned on rocket chamber three and immediately reached .96 Mach. . . the faster I got, the smoother the ride.
“Suddenly the Mach needle began to fluctuate. It went up to .965 Mach—then tipped right off the scale. . . .”
—Brigadier General Charles E. Yeager, U.S. Air Force (Retired), Yeager, An Autobiography, by Chuck Yeager and Leo Janos, Bantam Books, New York, 1985, Pages 120, 129–130.
In his official report of the flight, Yeager wrote:
Date: 14 October 1947
Pilot: Captain Charles E. Yeager
Time: 14 Minutes
9th Powered Flight
1. After normal pilot entry and subsequent climb, the XS-1 was dropped from the B-29 at 20,000′and at 250 MPH ISA. This was slower than desired.
2. Immediately after drop, all four cylinders were turned on in rapid sequence, their operation stabilizing at the chamber and line pressure reported in the last flight. The ensuing climb was made at .85–.88 Mach, and, as usual, it was necessary to change the stabilizer setting to 2 degrees nose down from its pre-drop setting of 1 degree nose down. Two cylinders were turned off between 35,000′ and 40,000′, but speed had increased to .92 Mach as the airplane was leveled off at 42,000′. Incidentally, during the slight push-over at this altitude, the lox line pressure dropped perhaps 40 psi and the resultant rich mixture caused chamber pressures to decrease slightly. The effect was only momentary, occurring at .6 G’s, and all pressures returned to normal at 1 G.
3. In anticipation of the decrease in elevator effectiveness at speeds above .93 Mach, longitudinal control by means of the stabilizer was tried during the climb at .83, .88, and .92 Mach. The stabilizer was moved in increments of 1/4–1/3 degree and proved to be very effective; also, no change in effectiveness was noticed at the different speeds.
4. At 42,000′ in approximately level flight, a third cylinder was turned on. Acceleration was rapid and speed increased to .98 mach. The needle of the machmeter fluctuated at this reading momentarily, then passed off the scale. Assuming that the offscale reading remained linear, it is estimated that 1.05 Mach was attained at this time. Approximately 30% of fuel and lox remained when this speed was reached and the meter was turned off.
5. While the usual light buffet and instability characteristics were encountered in the .88–.90 Mach range and elevator effectiveness was very greatly decreased at .94 Mach, stability about all three axes was good as speed increased and elevator effectiveness was regained above .97 Mach. As speed decreased after turning off the motor, the various phenomena occurred n reverse sequence at the usual speed, and in addition, a slight longitudinal porpoising was noticed from .98–.96 Mach which controllable by the elevators alone. Incidentally, the stability setting was not changed from its 2 degree nose down position after trial at .92 Mach.
6. After jettisoning the remaining fuel and lox a 1 G stall was performed at 45,000′. The flight was concluded by the subsequent glide and a normal landing on the lake bed.
CHARLES E. YEAGER
Capt., Air Corps
Chuck Yeager had flown the XS-1 through “the sound barrier,” something many experts had believed might not be possible. His maximum speed during this flight was Mach 1.06 (699.4 miles per hour/1,125.7 kilometers per hour).
The Bell XS-1, later re-designated X-1, was the first of a series of rocket powered research airplanes which included the Douglas D-558-II Skyrocket, the Bell X-2, and the North American Aviation X-15, which were flown by the U.S. Air Force, U.S. Navy, NACA and its successor, NASA, at Edwards Air Force Base to explore supersonic and hypersonic flight and at altitudes to and beyond the limits of Earth’s atmosphere.
The X-1 is shaped like a bullet and has straight wings and tail surfaces. It is 30 feet, 10.98 inches (9.423 meters) long with a wing span of 28.00 feet (8.534 meters) and overall height of 10 feet, 10.20 inches (3.307 meters). Total wing area is 102.5 square feet ( 9.5 square meters). At its widest point, the diameter of the X-1 fuselage is 4 feet, 7 inches (1.397 meters). The empty weight is 6,784.9 pounds (3,077.6 kilograms), but loaded with propellant, oxidizer and its pilot with his equipment, the weight increased to 13,034 pounds (5,912 kilograms). The X-1 was designed to withstand an ultimate structural load of 18g.
The X-1 is powered by a four-chamber Reaction Motors, Inc., XLR11-RM-3 rocket engine which produced 6,000 pounds of thrust (26,689 Newtons). This engine burns a mixture of ethyl alcohol and water with liquid oxygen. Fuel capacity is 293 gallons (1,109 liters) of water/alcohol and 311 gallons (1,177 liters) of liquid oxygen. The fuel system is pressurized by nitrogen at 1,500 pounds per square inch (10,342 kilopascals).
The X-1 was usually dropped from a B-29 flying at 30,000 feet (9,144 meters) and 345 miles per hour (555 kilometers per hour). It fell as much as 1,000 feet (305 meters) before beginning to climb under its own power.
The X-1’s performance was limited by its fuel capacity. Flying at 50,000 feet (15,240 meters), it could reach 916 miles per hour (1,474 kilometers per hour), but at 70,000 feet (21,336 meters) the maximum speed that could be reached was 898 miles per hour (1,445 kilometers per hour). During a maximum climb, fuel would be exhausted as the X-1 reached 74,800 feet (2,799 meters). The absolute ceiling is 87,750 feet (26,746 meters).
The X-1 had a minimum landing speed of 135 miles per hour (217 kilometers per hour) using 60% flaps.
The three X-1 rocketplanes made a total of 157 flights with the three X-1. The number one ship, Glamorous Glennis, made 78 flights. On 26 March 1948, with Chuck Yeager again in the cockpit, it reached reached Mach 1.45 (957 miles per hour/1,540 kilometers per hour) at 71,900 feet (21,915 meters).
The third X-1, 46-064, made just one glide flight before it was destroyed 9 November 1951 in an accidental explosion.
The second X-1, 46-063, was later modified to the X-1E. It is on display at the NASA Dryden Research Center at Edwards Air Force Base.
Glamorous Glennis is on display at the Smithsonian Institution National Air and Space Museum, next to Charles A. Lindbergh’s Spirit of St. Louis.
© 2017, Bryan R. Swopes
14 October 1947: Twenty minutes before Captain Charles E. (“Chuck”) Yeager broke the sound barrier with a Bell X-1 rocketplane, North American Aviation Chief Test Pilot George S. Welch put the swept-wing XP-86 prototype, serial number 45-59597, into a shallow dive from 37,000 feet (11,278 meters) and accelerated. In direct violation of orders from the Secretary of the Air Force to not do so, Welch broke the “sound barrier.”
Witnesses on the ground heard the distinctive “B-BOOM” double-shock as the aircraft exceeded the speed of sound. Welch was the first to observe “Mach jump” as the airspeed indicator momentarily indicated higher due to the compression of air in front of the aircraft.
Estimates are that the XP-86 reached Mach 1.02–1.04 on this flight.
© 2015, Bryan R. Swopes