An American Adventure: The Rocket Pilots + Reach for the Skies - Rare VHS Conversion

the b-29 reached 20,000 feet it would drop Jaeger in the x1 to try again but two days earlier Jaeger had fallen from a horse and broken two ribs they hurt and would hurt worse in the turbulence approaching Mach 1 Jaeger told no one prayed he would be grounded and he wanted to be in the x1 we were up about nine six Mach number and our Mach meter only went to one point zero I don't think that L was confidence in those days we were in quite a bit of buffeting in the airplane just shook and then all of us the Mach layer just jumped from off the scale and at this point all a buffering quit and the airplane just smooths out this is slick of glass and then I just went head Shep three chambers off and let the airplane decelerate back into the buffeting I called in within fifteen minutes thirty minutes of the flight once we knew it seen enough to know that we'd done it and about two hours later I got a call from the deputy director of NACA telling me that the program was now classified top secret Jagr had taken the x1 to 43,000 feet and 700 miles an hour just past Mach 1 the speed of sound it was by any standard and heroic achievement but this was the only parade Jaeger got pulled around on a desert runway by a dusty gene nearly no ticker-tape parade no visit to the White House no headlines no public adoration like Lindbergh Jaeger had helped to change the world but Lindbergh's accomplishment was public Yeager's was classified those were the days of the Cold War and this tentative step towards space had to be kept top secret it was only one step we would need so many more the rocket pilots will continue in a moment in the sky above the Mojave Desert the Edwards test pilots push themselves and their new plans to the edge if it happened in aviation in the early 50s could happen that attracted 29 year-old Scott Crossfield a civilian graduate engineer with a master's degree in aeronautics within a year he would build a reputation as one of the best a rival to Chuck Yeager Crossfield did not fit the Hollywood image of a test pilot but he was cocky he was independent and he wanted to be part of the rocket plane program in 1980 60 years old Crossville went back to edwards south base is deserted now when cross feel first got there it was the center of the chest pilots universe this was really the place to be there was no question about her at home I was Ostrom Wendy Williams showed me the airplane head there was no question why my rival Howard Hughes can't buy those are plenty enough despite the popular imagination test pilots were not wild and reckless they were methodical careful and ten bond testing planes step-by-step the object was to find out what the new jets and rockets could do and stay alive to report it a lot of them didn't we killed 17 people on this base in two years you just learned hypnotize yourself into putting it out of your mind if you're given to reacting to fear you've got no business being a test pilot and if you refuse to acknowledge at least to yourself fair you've got no business being a test pilot the word fear you really don't consider it as a part of your vocabulary when you're testing airplanes because we call it apprehension number one when you're involved in programs where the outcome is questionable and when your necks on the line it really you don't look at it as being dangerous it's something that you're sort of dedicated to and you're you just sort of concede the fact that that's your job and that's what you're going to do and and you don't really think about the outcome and and of course a lot of pals got killed the public saw this kind of high-performance flying only at airshows for the test pilots at Edwards it was daily routine dangerous but routine the goal was researched find out what each plane could do what its limits were and put it into a bland engineering report on the other hand no one said setting a record was all bad going higher going faster doing something today that no one could do yesterday that's the way the test pilots kept score in three years Crossfield put in more hours in the experimental rocket planes than any other pilot and if he was the calm professional in the air he was not above showing off on the ground modest people are sold 'im if ever test pilots but they are cautious and if showing off was called for the ground was the place to do it it's safe there or it's supposed to be I had made many dead-stick landings with the rocket airplanes on the lake bed and it perfected a technique where I could land where I wanted and then I would post up the ramp and tap the brakes and park the airplane in front of the hangar dead-stick and that was just a little flourish got pretty good pilot but he liked all of us test pilots who were flying so many different kinds of airplanes in those days didn't pay an awful lot of attention to the emergency systems and what happened he landed on the lakebed and brought the airplane up onto the ramp and was going to stop it in front of hair but had no brakes so we're right on through the hanger that those stuck right through the wall and subsequently every time he had a chance in public Yeager would always say the SonicWALL was his the hanger wall was cross fields there was a rivalry between Crossfield in iaeger it was most obvious in November 1953 one month short of the 50th anniversary of the Wright brothers first flight the Air Force wanted to use the x1a to celebrate Jaeger had taken the x1 past the speed of sound and the Air Force wanted him to take the x1 a2 twice the speed of sound the plane was designed to fly that fast an Jaeger decided to try cross field wanted to get there first he talked the Navy into letting him try for Mach 2 in the Douglas sky rocket it was not designed for that speed but whoever reached Mach 2 would be the fastest man alive if he survived cross field tried first Dinah's crude at everything they could think of to make the aging skyrocket faster than it ought to be like cold soaked that thing wiped off every fly speck would any excess drag on it all we started loading it oh six or eight hours earlier than we would and let that liquid auction just soak it till it was a damn court even touched your hand and freezin anywhere it was a good cold morning miserable morning I had weather was bad cross field tried and failed six times in late November 1953 he made his seventh and final attempt to reach Mach two neither did it this time or let Jaeger try being second was not Crossfield style he would use all his skill and knowledge to take the skyrocket to twice the speed of sound even if it wasn't supposed to fly that fast cross field fired all four rockets and started to climb easily passed Mach 1 and kept going at seventy-two thousand feet boss Bo put the rocket plane into a dive and hit Mach two it was there you know it again something you wanted to do what be first perfectly if I could maybe a girl at Edwards Air Force Base burek California test pilot Scott Crossfield and the needle-nosed Douglas skyrocket now 32 year old scientist pilot Scott Crossfield first man to fly twice the speed of sound 22 days later Chuck Yeager got his shot at the title fastest man alive Crossfield had gone 1291 miles per hour Mach two point zero zero five Yeager wanted to go faster he did Mach two point four two it almost killed him as we went through 2.3 box over the airplane begin to y'all the outside wing start coming up and nothing was causing the airplane to respond and the airplane rolled over when inverted and then pinched up and Dysport the canopy button I didn't know really I could Moria myself up and down and the x1 a we have till we get out of it either so the ejection seat so of course I blocked out with Jager blacked out the x1 a fell 51,000 feet and 51 seconds the planes spun and tumbled Jaeger was simultaneously pushed pulled and slammed around his helmet cracked the canopy he came to disoriented weak and bleeding x1a was in a deadly end over in tumble an inverted spin it is usually fatal so I just sort of hung on in this inverted spin I recovered that into normal spin and popped it out and almost bent at about 25,000 feet and looked around found the lakebed and collided on in landed Jagr had beaten the sound barrier only to find a second barrier engineers called it high-speed instability a loss of all control at 1500 miles per hour Yeager regained control Crossfield knew why it's the jaegers total skill that allowed him to recover the airplane so that we had one to go another day he was probably fortunate that Jaeger was a pilot on that flight Jagr is now retired but still flies supersonic jets in 1954 one year after he survived high speed and stability he returned to regular Air Force flight duty in 1962 he went back to Edwards to help train astronauts in those eight years Jaeger missed a revolution at Edwards scientists and technicians had stopped wondering about the sky and started wondering about space if a hotshot like Jager could tear up the sky why couldn't someone with a better faster more stable craft tear up space no one could think of a reason why man could not fly into space Jaeger was away when the x2 finally arrived at Edwards five years behind schedule it had been built to fly three times the speed of sound Mach 3 and theoretically it could theoretically six Air Force captain Milburn apt tries for a record in the x2 he wants the rocket plane to do what it was designed to do fly at three times the speed of sound captain app died a victim of that neutral engineering phrase high speed and stability from the pieces of the x2 engineers learned that the tail had to be larger and until it was no one was going to survive Mach 3 there was a rocket plane that might make it that might get past not only high speed and stability but the Earth's atmosphere as well plane that might fly into space but it wasn't ready so everyone waited for the x-15 the planning had started years before the x-15 was not another rocket-powered aircraft it was to be the first rocket-powered spacecraft the Wright brothers took us into the air the x-15 was to take us beyond it using a million horsepower rocket engine the x-15 was designed to break away from Earth's gravity and fly into space it would not orbit it would go into space and back in controlled flight the x-15 was being built by North American Aviation and one of the men working on it was Scott Crossfield he had left Edwards enjoying the private contractor he wanted to help with a design fly the builders tests and persuade the government to let him take it into space Crossfield was betting his career that he could do it cross fields boss at North American was the x-15 project coordinator an engineer named Harrison storms storms knew exactly what he wanted the x-15 to be it was the most advanced aircraft in the world in fact still is the most advanced aircraft in the world as far as that goes even today storms wasn't building the x-15 so that cross field or anyone else could fly fast in the clear Mojave sky he was looking beyond the sky one of the most powerful reasons for wanting to do a project like the x-15 this is one of the primary steps on your way to space and it's a necessary step but there was another way to space scientists were working with ballistic missiles you couldn't fly them and in the 50s as often as not you couldn't launch them either a cape canaveral missiles were an exotic expensive often explosive scientific sideshow it didn't matter until the fall of 1957 what's they get in Europe we got today the Soviet Union launched Sputnik one each a ship I didn't know it orbited the earth it steady beep a constant reminder that we had been beaten it was just a dusk I looked up and there was Sputnik to see that moving across the sky which was just a point of light was really an awesome feeling there was something that I couldn't touch shake could he get to I couldn't uh do anything about it I felt the degree of frustration resentment chagrin shock downright embarrassingly we didn't like it with a family professionally 63 days after the first beep from Sputnik the United States had a vanguard missile ready to launch from Cape Canaveral it would put us back into the space race there was live national television coverage at North American the x-15 program had its own problems the rocket plane was on schedule the rocket engine was not it became very obvious that we were not going to have the LR 99 engine the big engine ready when the airplane was gonna be ready and one we had underfunded we had underestimated the job of changing this Viking engine from a missile we wanted it to be throttle the throttle herbal rocket engine had never been built up to that point so these were very extreme requirements and we simply weren't getting there one of the earlier decisions of the newly-formed space administration was that ballistic missiles not winged craft would be the fastest least expensive way to put men into space tension shifted from edwards to canaveral the test pilots at edwards said that no one would fly these things they dried them there would be no pilots only passengers October 1958 a year after Sputnik North American rolled out the first x-15 it did not have the million horsepower engine instead it used to x1 engines it wasn't what anyone wanted it was the best anyone could do vice president Richard Nixon proclaimed it the day that America regained the lead in space the x-15 had never been in the air in theory it would work but in theory so did the x2 and that plane had killed three men Scott Crossfield would fly the tests for North American but the government had talented eager test pilots ready to take over the controls and they were young Jagr was gone as the x-15 was taken by truck to Edwards cross field was the old pro he was 38 and he knew the x-15 perhaps his ambition and the national interest might come together with the controls of an experimental rocket plane just over 50 feet long and 22 feet across the United States desperately needed a success in space something to polish a thoroughly tarnished image Crossfield desperately wanted to try we fully understood that we were now under the gun to do something for our country and to really get back to our own internal self confidence know how good we really were never been any question my mind that anybody could be to submissiveness of high technology like in aviation or interface the rocket pilots will continue in a moment do the rocket pilots one minute so job Oh Scott upper grade on 802 please 300 shut er down there's no job Raj I think has no job is a launch light on before flight tests could begin scientists had to know if the x-15 would glide as it must land or drop like a rock the only way to find out was for a b-52 to carry Scott Crossfield Zechs 1500 off and launch it it sounded so simple for months the x-15 was carried aloft and carried back still nestled under the starboard wing it had not been launched not once reporters and photographers assigned to cover the x-15 story wrote of frustration and failure the pressure to succeed increased we were on camera at that time and there was just no question that we were expected to carry the banner we were very vulnerable to let's say tarnishing the national image and were just determined we weren't going to make any critical mistakes with the recent success of space shuttle it is difficult to remember how desperate the United States was in 1959 for any accomplishment in space the people who worked on x-15 still remember the crushing psychological pressure to give the country something to boost morale technicians would work like dogs only to have a launch canceled they were getting spooked Crossfield and storms were getting uneasy the whole crew can get a disease called cancel itis as soon as I come into any dental only if you give up everybody else you it was a tough difficult airplane to get going handles some very atrocious chemicals cold and miserable working out there all night to get it ready and in the morning to get the flight going by very often got in the cockpit even though it wasn't time just to let those guys know that we were gonna go today as long as I sat in the copier I said there for eight hours one time and I remember well into the afternoon long as I sat in that cockpit they would work their hearts out to get those systems working not to let me down June 8 1959 so far the sleek black x-15 has been nothing more than extremely expensive wing cargo no one knows if it can reach space or fly or even Glide three like a Magnus alliant buddy in order to glide to a landing Crossville had to jettison the lower or ventral fin forget you okay when I clear the edge of the lake it had gone so well then it began to go wrong cross feel had to depend on instruments and the chase pilots instructions to land but on this first landing the power control system proved too sensitive anything cross field did was too much closer he got the ground the worse it looked I just older study and you'll settle right there it was as true then as it is now any landing you can walk away from is a good landing Crossfield was an engineer and he suspected that some design error had made the x-15 inherently dangerous they couldn't believe the airplane is unstable and yet I'm stability in my mind there was no question of stability the airplane had proven stable tested stable I knew it was stable there's also a first flight it took a little bit of doing getting used to osteo was wrong storms was right the problem was a minor adjustment to the public it didn't matter the spotlight was on Cape Canaveral NASA named the seven men chosen to be the first astronauts those who would ride mercury capsules into space then into orbit but they're not by spacecraft but by missiles no one had yet been into space but the astronauts became instant celebrities the test pilots at Edwards were forgotten I never envied the astronauts they had a very difficult road a hole they were man of some consequence and they knew how this idolatry was I kind of sell I was the first astronaut or at least was way ahead of them the rocket pilots will continue in a moment would simply disappear Crossville had made the b-52 pilot agree that if there is trouble the pilot will dump the x-15 and save the b-52 that is not heroics but mathematics better to lose one man than five for this test Joe Walker of NASA would fly one of the chase planes an Air Force Major Bob white the other both were waiting to take the x-15 into space when North American turned it over to the government Frost feel wanted to fly the x-15 to space but the government didn't want him there his orders were specific low and slow below 60,000 feet below Mach 2 Crossfield could obey his orders only if there was a launch if the rocket engines fired if they did not blow up if the x-15 flew if no one made a mistake if the engineers were right if hi it worked the x-15 s first powered flight was perfect and to stay low and slow Crossfield had to hold it back the x-15 went nowhere near its limits to celebrate Crossville allowed himself one unauthorized barrel roll nothing went wrong the first powered flight was perfect so was the second the third started as well then went wrong one of the engines caught fire fire start might shut down Crossfield and his chase pilots were calm no one mentioned the obvious could explode coming in nose-down osteo could not jettison the fuel it was heavy too heavy don't forget our Metro the x-15 touchdown Benbrook what's happening a bill is QC do you read Scott it off the x-15 split inches behind the cockpit inches ahead of the fuel tanks move the split either way and cross V you might not have walked away there was a design oversight in the nose gear and that's what caused it to break in - in fact it probably should have broken on the first landing that I ever made with the airplane because the deficiency was there that deficiency was corrected and if the next 16 launches 13 were successful North Americans x-15 tests ended the government's began Joe Walker of NASA flew the x-15 and Crossfield flew chase and a conventional jet their roles reversed the x-15 was flawless competitive instincts came back he first be fastest go highest head for space maybe the x-15 could beat the Russians perhaps even beat the mercury astronauts spring 1960 one and a half years after the x-15 was rolled out the million horsepower engine arrives at Edwards someone has to test it someone who knows what he's doing Scott Crossfield would make the engine do everything it would have to do to carry the x-15 to space the x-15 was locked in steel grips Rossville wouldn't fly one foot but he would be as alone as if he were in the air those who designed and built the engine were confident it would work but it might explode and a million horsepower would make a big bang the blue box has a closet you it is axiomatic and testing never risk more people than you must test the engine the only man who had to be risk was cross-feed it was the biggest bang I'd ever heard it was like being in the Sun and the cup bid an instrument Baywood blown a bottle 30 or 40 feet from its original position and the fire was burning all around and while I of course was concerned I realized that I was in a structure in the that were designed to resist heat what Crossfield survived was a force 50 times the pull of gravity he survived because the cockpit had been designed to protect the pilot from that force and worse Crossfield had helped design it and the engine design was good the explosion was caused by a faulty valve the rocket pilots will continue in a moment penance November 1960 Scott Crossfield flew a complete X 15 million horsepower engine and all it had three times the power of a vanguard missile and in 11 seconds Hoss field finally was in a spacecraft it could climb out of the Earth's atmosphere at six times the speed of sound it was a culmination of many years that was a flight we've worked for from the day we first conceived the x-15 and all of the pieces were in place it was the World Series but it was the World Series only if you were allowed to play ha steel was not the orders remained stay in the sky stay out of space boss field did what he was told perfectly North American had turned over one x-15 to the government and was ready to turn over the other to cross field still hoped that he could take one of them into space no one knew more about the rocket plane that he did but plenty of pilots wanted to know in addition to Walker and white standing in the wings were Neil Armstrong John McKay Forrest Peterson and Robert Rushworth all of them eager and able Crossfield made one last try Scotty introduced the proposal that he be allowed to fly the majority of the flights for the government that it would not have been good for all of us if one pilot had done all of the flying I realized he did that because he really wanted to stay with the program we all had the desire to fly and I felt at the time Scott he'd had enough he made his choice he could have stayed our NASA and been assured a chance of doing the high-speed flights but instead he elected to go to the contractor I think he was just hoping that the contractor would get the whole program and it didn't December 1960 cross fields last flight whatever he was going to do with the x-15 he would have to do now or forget almost everyone expected something I think there were a lot of people at Edwards who felt that Scott might try to cut loose I had mixed feelings I knew that if he got the chance he certainly wanted to do it but on the other hand he's a very highly disciplined man but I know he wanted to make those flights in the worst way that's why the restrictions went down put it right down in black and white as to what he was supposed to do and expected him to follow it in any way we could ensure that on the ground cross field could be controlled in the air he would be on his own across the high desert men talked about and bet money on what boss feel would do once he was aloft Crossville had been flying the x-15 for 18 months of 30 test flights this was his 14th but both Walker and white had gone faster past Mach 3 and white had gone higher above 130,000 feet if Crossfield wanted his name in the records he would do it this time or not at all all Crossfield had to do was put slight pressure on the throttle and the x-15 would set any record he wanted Krauss feels orders would prevent a record if he disobeyed what more could anyone do to him on the ground people looked up to see what kind of Hollywood finish Crossfield would put on his flights of the x-15 on his last flight Crossfield did what he had done on all the others he obeyed orders there's a lot of people that think of a test pilot in terms of a guy that goes out and lays his life on the line and goes for broke with the scarf line and all that people who were making batsmen I would open x-15 up but they didn't know me it just was no way that could happen I got just about all out of it any man could get out of a single program you can't ask for all you know I get off all eight yards didn't get to nine yards ix yard would have been to fly the x-15 into space Crossville did not other men would cross fields work his flights had made that possible the rocket pilots will continue in a moment at pilots Colonel William Knight was one of the pilots who followed cross field now vice commander of the Edwards test center he established a speed record in the x-15 that stood for 13 years but the goal was Space Research it was a hybrid airplane it was rocket-powered was capable of flying outside of the atmosphere in the atmosphere and going faster than anything we had ever flown before we were looking at what it would do to the pilot what it would do to the airplane all of those things were unknowns in 1961 NASA and military pilots started toward space and careful calculated controlled steps 14 years earlier Chuck Yeager had first flown at the speed of sound now that was slow only one flight in 1961 was below Mach two faster and faster towards space by the end of the year major Bob white would take the x-15 above 200 thousand feet and would go faster than 4000 miles per hour above Mach 6 those successes were overshadowed before they were achieved the Soviet Union not only went into space his capsule made a single orbit around the earth putting the United States behind again the x-15 could not match good garin's achievement nor could the ballistic missiles a month later mercury astronaut Alan Shepard made a suborbital flight a missile shot him 116 miles up 302 miles downrange it won a commitment from the president I believe that this nation should commit itself to achieving the goal before this decade is out of landing a man on the moon and returning him safely to the earth the missile stole the show public imagination was captured by the thundering fiery precision of them broadcast live it was the show of the decade Mercury Gemini Apollo success on success July 17th 1962 major white flies the x-15 into space and flies back only a few people notice in the next five years seven x-15 pilots will routinely fly into space to research for the Gemini and Apollo programs and fly back the x-15 was the space programs workhorse the ballistic missile was the thoroughbred racing for the moon October 1967 Pete Knight is given a new research project the job will make him the fastest man alive or kill him Knight is to test the effect of high speed aerodynamics heating the x-15 is fitted with extra fuel tanks and sprayed with a heat-resistant coating lights job is to push the x-15 to 4,000 miles per hour so I had to snow the Airstream will create enormous heat they don't know precisely what that heat will do Knight reached more than 4500 miles per hour and as we did that we burn off the lower ventral we print the ramjet off the temperatures were getting so high and we were burning things out faster than I could have probably taken care of and if I had known it was the last flight rather than stopping at six point seven I think I would have been tempted to go to Mach seven at least just to get one more Mach number but I think if we had we would have probably lost the aircraft the protective coating failed but during the test night reached 40 520 miles per hour a record nights record would stand until the Space Shuttle in the 1981 World Almanac and book of facts mites name is not mentioned not at all six weeks later November 15 1967 an x-15 pilot was killed the only one in nine years major Michael Adams died trying to come back from space his ground control officer on that day was Pete Knight because of the malfunction one of the displays was giving him erroneous information and so as it turned out as he went over the top he got the airplane turned around a hundred degrees so he actually reentered the atmosphere backwards the airplane then went into a classical spin actually broke itself up as it re-entered the atmosphere and he was never in a position to eject or get out of the airplane safely the rocket pilots will continue in a moment October 1968 the x-15 program ends there had been 199 flights to find answers the space program needed 12 men flew the x-15 Scott Crossfield was first William Dana was last feet light went more than 4,500 miles an hour Joe Walker went more than 67 miles high Michael Adams died and there it ended no more with the x-15 blazed across the desert sky but the information from the program was being used to develop something new from the time of Greek mythology men have dreamed of flying of commanding the sky only recently have they dreamed of commanding space of flying there and they have 34 years after slick Goodland landed the x1 on the dry lake bed at edwards the space shuttle landed there the x1 led to the x-15 the x-15 to the shuttle and the shuttle could make space as useful as the Wright brothers had made the sky useful if so the way was paved by the x-15 and the 12 men who flew it Robert Crippen and John Young who flew the shuttle knew that the experience that we gained from an aerodynamic standpoint energy standpoint and basic early rocket technology was the kind of thing that made the Space Shuttle possible and to lift the drag ratio of the space shuttle it's almost identical to that of the x-15 very similar programs with a good deal of feedback into the space show and it really paid off Griffin and young became our newest heroes we showered them with ticker tape and adoration Charles Lindbergh who flew the Atlantic got much more Chuck Yeager who broke the sound barrier much less people need heroes sometimes they're hard to come by I think that because John and I had an opportunity to do something unique and people were looking for something they could grab hold of and and have a positive kind of effect on them that at least for a short period of time we were put in the hero world that's the way this world is now we're in the future right now everybody's gonna be famous for 15 minutes and we're on minute about 14 and that's the way things are it's the way it's handled in the media and everywhere and that's the way it's gonna be from now on and that's alright that's fine so much has happened in our lifetime we forget to easily and too quickly it was only 78 years ago that an automobile made the first trip from coast to coast it took 71 days now it takes five days round trip to the moon we celebrate what we have done we forget who did it we keep the machines we discard the people in today's world of high-speed change how long with charles lindbergh have held our imagination we expect success we assume technology will make it possible advanced machines Eclipse the men who controlled them did Chuck Yeager break the sound barrier or did the x1 do we look up to the man or the machine before these machines led us to space we lived in a time we could more easily understand even share we could imagine being in the sky with Lindbergh we might even have been able to do what he did maybe no more perhaps what has happened in our lifetime will be seen more clearly in the future machines took us into space they would not have that not man conceived them designed them built them and flown them most importantly no machine would have been in space that not some person dreamed of going there machines do men dream from those dreams we build the American adventure next week on living dangerously a group of climbers braved freezing 100 mile-per-hour wind back from space especially for a pilot and so we felt that we could develop an air that back from space much better way to come back in our opinion so we decided to build a small demonstrator without asking for headquarters approval because we were a little afraid that because of the politics they would say no the Flyers at Edwards tried out a shape that would fly without wings called a lifting body they pulled it behind a car it was pretty bizarre flying a very advanced spacecraft behind a Pontiac out in the middle of the desert you know thinking that this might lead to a new spacecraft the official research program later took up the Flyers idea what it wanted was a reusable spacecraft one that could fly back to earth when its space journey was done those who tested it ran great risks the edge of the unknown is a dangerous place it was always the winged airplanes the lifting airplanes that I could relate to so even though I admired the people that flew the mercury in the Gemini and the Apollo why it was nothing I there was something that I didn't want to be a part of and I was glad when the when the shuttle came along and put wings back on my spacecraft April 12 1981 within a lifetime the proving ground of Kitty Hawk has become the proving ground of space pilots John Young and Bob Crippen put their lives on the line to show that man can go into space and fly back to earth this crippling can go fine he doesn't look very nervous but you can see I have a nervous smile I think I was as nervous as grip was but I'm just soul and my my heart would go any faster anybody who's not apprehensive about clowning on top of a first-time flight of a liquid hydrogen oxygen rocket ship really doesn't understand the problem and I think both grip and I were fairly nervous nine eight seven six five or we've gone for main engine start Roger all rodgero complete only 78 years after the Wright brothers launched their first fragile airplane young and drippin are bringing an airplane back from space this is reentry we're probably moving at Mach 18 point 6 you could feel a vehicle turning right or the water really tremendous there we'll see Mach 10 role-reversal this is a rollback at Mach 4.8 over Bakersfield California the vehicle was behaving we're not very solidly that's a beautiful handling machine looking very smoothing speed bake break we're coming down at 20 degrees gamma which is about six times steeper than the average airliner makes an approach honey your maintain your airspeed out there at about two hundred eighty five knots equivalent ears yeah great one down I'd have to say is one of my best landings because I made a whole bunch of Landry t-38 right after the flight time we're as good as that one the flight was a success but they needed the resources and the manpower of the richest economy in the world testing the unknown reaching beyond the skies has become the most expensive business on earth there are still new challenges of course steps to take as daring as those first taken by the Wright brothers a spacecraft that can take off from a runway for example NASA is already designing one called the National aerospace plane Britain has another ocean in the end only the energies and wealth of countries and corporations would get them off the ground but there is still a place for individuals for the lone inventors who in their garages and dreams first launched the romance of modern aviation this is a revolutionary new plane built of new materials conceived by a solo visionary the starship the man touched by the same vision as the Wright brothers Burt Rutan I had a model airplane background and I found that yes indeed it is possible to build your airplane in your garage and go out and fly it mutt stumbled on this method of mobile composite construction not really knowing whether they would be acceptable ways to produce airplane was able to produce an airplane in three months that was the big breakthrough from then on I realized by gosh if I can build an airplane in three or four months no reason why I can't over a couple of years develop test four five six configurations the most significant thing was not just the stall limiting canard aerodynamics I think the reason that I've been called a pioneer is that 20 years developed flight tested flown over 20 different types of air using the composite primarily as a shortcut so that I can build a wing this week instead of taking month to two weeks to do when Rutten created voyager that most remarkable of aircraft designed to circle the world without landing or refueling like the early pioneer as he brought the edges of the unknown and the impossible a little closer I didn't invent a new technology or a new material for Voyager I stuck my neck out and applied it without asking myself gee isn't that too dangerous or won't that maybe not work well of course it's dangerous as hell to make an airplane that if we'd had a little bit of turbulence at takeoff we didn't lost the airplane crew and if I'd have added two or three percent more weight to it I've gone off the end of the runway in Flint I think the world of aviation will gain from me mostly inspiration fact that a few people literally in a garage or a small shop built an airplane that doubled an absolute distance record flew all the way around the world flew through all this weather came back home safely the fact that that was done all-composite without mixing metals without solving all these stupid problems that the engineers made for themselves that will provide the inspiration it can't be done we're gonna do it we'll stick our necks out I knew how the Wright brothers felt when they came upon these things and and had success TNT is exclusive this alarm clock telephone can be yours free in Justin T's exclusive premiere of reaching for the skies the skies continues with a look at aviation firsts trailblazers May the 20th 1927 a young American Flyer sets out on a journey that will shrink the world we're back Santa in his aircraft spirit of st. Louis Charles Lindbergh will be the first man to fly the Atlantic solo and become one of Aviation's greatest trailblazers April 1969 another trailblazing flight this time it's the world's first supersonic airliner the anglo-french concorde Lindbergh had taken thirty three and a half hours to cross the Atlantic Concorde would soon be offering a regular service that took less than three they'd ultimate earth to shrinker Aviation has shrunk the world to liveable size and it's it's changed our whole manner of thinking and living on this little globe we I it's thinking my wildest dreams I never anticipated how far and how fast we would go exactly fifty years separated Conchords maiden flight at the very first direct crossing of the Atlantic and a converted Vickers Vimy bomber 19:19 was the year the daeviation trailblazing took off but the first world war over there were tens of thousands of plants looking for something to do for the first time countries could be linked and oceans cross the skies of the world cried out to be conquered indeed the challenge had been thrown down six years earlier by the Daily Mail of London a 10,000 pound tries for the first non-stop crossing of the Atlantic in June 1919 to Royal Air Force pilots John Alcock and Arthur Witten Brown arrived in Newfoundland to attempt the 2,000 mile flight to Ireland their Vickers Vimy had arrived in crates from England and was assembled on site meanwhile another attempt was underway three Curtiss flying boats of the u.s. Navy set out for Newfoundland to cross the Atlantic in stages first stop was the Azores to refuel two aircraft failed to get there don't air crews were saved the third flown by Lieutenant Commander Reed with the crew of five made it and went on vile has been to reach Plymouth their journey the first flight of any kind across the Atlantic had taken 15 days back in North America no less than 12 different aircraft were trying for the 10,000 pound prize by June 14th the deme of all and Braun was ready to take off from the grass strip of st. John's groaning with 870 gallons of fuel needed for the flight the Vimy slowly took off and headed east at a height of 1,200 feet overnight the two pilots battled with fog banks storms ice and dense cloud while the world waited for news after 16 hours they finally reached the coast of Ireland and landed in a bog an unceremonious end to a great adventure but both men became instant heroes claimed their prize and were knighted the first nonstop crossing of the Atlantic in 1919 was just one of the many trailblazing achievements of that remarkable year in November two Australian brothers Ralston Keith Smith returning from Europe after the war took up another challenge the Australian Government it offered ten thousand pounds for the first flight from London to Australia in under 30 days afternoon is despair behind such flights was the prospect of commercial aviation it would be many years before such long distances could be flown by fare-paying passengers but over shorter distances commercial flights were already underway the first international service began between

Channel: rogueguineapig

Views: 261,777

Rating: 4.7996769 out of 5

Keywords: x15, x-15, b-52, b52, rocket, pilots, old, documentary, X1, X-1, X1A, X-1A, X-3, X3, X-4, X4, Scott, Crossfield, Chuck, Yeager, TNT, exclusive, premier, reaching, skies, nasa, naca, early, test, american, aviation, douglas, skyrocket, interia, coupling

Id: 07nZxVxX8n4

Length: 76min 10sec (4570 seconds)

Published: Fri Apr 06 2012

Reddit Comments

[u/peterabbit456]

Incredibly thrilling, and also accurate history. I hope everyone likes it.

Interviews with Chuck Yeager and Scott Crossfield, also.

[u/Ascott1989]

So the virgin galactic spacecraft is based off the technology developed in the 60's.