Stan Barrett Breaking The Sound Barrier Live from Edwards Air Force Base in 1979

all night the crews have been organizing to put this car through the sound barrier better than 740 miles per hour at the one place where they are most use to ultimate speed we have been to Tonopah Nevada we've been to Bonneville Utah but now we are here on the Rogers dry lake looking for Mach 1 on land if the beaches of Daytona and Ormond in the birthplace of speed then here at Rogers dry lake at Edwards Air Force Base this is a birthplace of supersonic speed and for the first time a man is attempting to go supersonic in a land vehicle Stan Baron attempting the effort here he is about to get in the automobile to try for that magic mark here on land better than 740 miles per hour the car is being filled with hydrogen peroxide right now a heater is still attached to the machine there you see the pre-staged area about a mile away and there's the telemetry room Joe Sargent calibrating his equipment there's the US Air Force radar room which will be tracking the rocket car and there's the seat awaiting Stan Baron the count is continuing here at Edwards Air Force Base it was just three months ago in this same vehicle that Stan Barrett made a run at Bonneville which made him the fastest man on earth at some 638 miles per hour Utah's Bonneville Salt Flats have been the home of ultimate speed since the 30s and the days of the modern media are AB Jenkins answer talcum Camp Bell when Bill Frederick's counted off this September 1979 running for Stanbury it was expected that this would be a step toward Mach one speed of sound on land indeed it was a tremendous run stanley barrett here exceeding 638 miles per hour on a one-way run toward the sound barrier but barriers are hard to reach and at Bonneville there were difficulties for a moment when the calibration of time was given for this run there was great elation it seemed like only a quick step from this run to the barrier but while this scene was taking place problems were discovered on the track as brock yates reported here on the course Stan Barrett was travelling at about 500 miles an hour as he approached the traps at about the two mile mark here the wheels began to leap off the ground as they drove through this thin layer of salt here the right side wheel has come off the ground for about forty feet when the car began to tricycle down the racetrack with the wheels alternately leaping off the ground designer Bell Frederick's has decided that if this condition prevailed there is a possibility that a car could be broken in half by the massive physical forces that come to bear under these conditions that run at Bonneville was so harrowing so dangerous for the wheel skipping over the salt sometimes ninety feet before coming back to the ground that a new location had to be found hence we are here at the birthplace of supersonic speed Rogers dry lake Edwards Air Force Base a strange mysterious place where heroes are paid by the month for taking the ultimate wrists and then like this man captain Chuck Yeager 1947 in the x1 penetrating the sound barrier at 670 miles per hour and then safely bringing that aircraft back to the bed of Rogers dry lake men like the man in this x-15 who in the 60s went faster in an aircraft that anyone has ever gone Pete Knight 4500 miles an hour plus naturally where people go for the ultimate limits they face the ultimate risks to analyze today's event we have with us one of World War two s great American fighter pilot aces and the first man to break Mach one retired Air Force general Chuck Yeager Chuck when you went through the barrier you went through at 670 miles per hour now today they're talking about 700 34 35 miles an hour why do they have to go so much faster than you did well here just above sea level the speed of sound is around 740 miles per hour up where I was with the x1 back in 47 the speed of sound was only 660 miles per hour Chuck they're removing the heater from the rocket car we're getting very close on the countdown do you think they can do it well yeah it looks good today they got the engine peaked up tracks in good shape and stands ready and there you see 36 year old Bishop California Hollywood stuntman Stanbury arriving back at the pre-staged area there is no stunt about what he'll be attempting today and right now let's take a look at a previous run that put him faster than he had ever gone before this December 3rd Stan Barrett on his run that took him to 643 miles per hour we joined this run as bill Frederick's the car designer was in the countdown yeah I can't he's smoking along I had a pretty good rate he's being exposed to about two and a quarter Gees longitudinal acceleration that means he's picking up somewhere between 55 and 60 miles per hour per second after he goes through the traps here at the model and a half mark he comes off the power gets below 200 miles here he starts applying the brakes and slows down you know he keeps chewing away at that old sound barrier from zero to 600 and back in less than a minute it seems like such a simple problem as you described it there Chuck Yeager may seem that way but it really isn't is that awful lot goes on behind the scenes can project SOS continuing on the countdown toward Mach 1 more shortly at Rogers dry lake Edwards Air Force Base with general Chuck Yeager I'm Ken Squier and they are fueling the rocket car for the assault on the sound barrier by Stan Barrett this day as the feeling goes on there is no public the man who has designed the car and here they are cleaning the windshield Ken with an alcohol compound so Stan can see through it real good there's hal needham project together he himself in the program we saw several years ago on CBS went over 600 miles per hour in a rocket car some of the press that's gathered here today Chuck pretty good crowd out problem here somebody dropped the screw down the compartments won't they Lavoie get that bottom panel off against now going to cause the delay in our countdown as the fueling continues on the machine now here's a good view of what Stan sees down the track course all those people won't be in there earlier hal needham took a few moments to give us an example of how much power this rocket car has these drums contained hydrogen peroxide that's a fuel it's a fuel that Stanley Byrd is going to use in this rocket car holds 138 gallons there's about 1,500 pounds it develops 48 thousand horsepower now let's see 48 thousand horsepower let me break that down a little bit your average car has 210 horsepower an average Indianapolis car has 850 horsepower there are 33 Indianapolis cars on the grid in order to equal the power in this rocket car it would take twice that amount Ken Howell was talking about the maximum amount of thrust he's getting in this thing let me explain it real quick what this hybrid chamber does on that rocket motor the hydrogen peroxide comes through that catalyst crystal decomposes and expands about a thousand times into steam and steam temperature is almost up to 1,200 degrees now we come back into this hybrid chamber that's behind the hydrogen peroxide rocket that gas which is about 1,200 degrees comes into that chamber and that decomposes this poly composition and when at 1,200 degree gas hits this poly it decomposes it from solid to gas instantly and increases that chamber pressure in the hybrid chamber about 50 percent more giving giving us about 50 percent more thrust now in addition to that we got this Sidewinder sitting up there and that Sidewinder puts out roughly 4000 pounds of thrust for about six seconds they change it a little bit vary between motors but that's about what you get and that's when we talk about horsepower man he's really got it there you see Bill Frederick carried right up to the armpit one of those hybrid engines and directly above it the Sidewinder really a heat-seeking missile what we see here is only the rocket propulsion unit attached to the side weapon okay Chuck this was the run from December 5th the first time they have utilized a Sidewinder on a rocket car and we're not interested in full thrust so we took the hybrid engine off and what he's doing we put in roughly seven seconds of fuel and we will get about 9,000 pounds of thrust out of the amount of propellant unit here just get it rolling up find out what happens yeah well he'll get it up about two seconds into the run and then he'll fire off the Sidewinder motor cell and he's heating up the catalyst here by squirting Prok side across it to get it hot enough to get his full thrust out of it that Sidewinder is considered the ultimate device to get that rocket car through the sound barrier this was the test run on December 5th a lot of Sidewinders off of aircraft and when you pull the trigger those things really come out mer your wing now their old stand what's the button on that Sidewinder rocket motor had it hit him and it hit him hard and I'll tell you he was quite surprised because that's instant thrush that was used to I don't know I was so surprised that it hit me so hard yeah your breakup raishin period then you hit that thing in stan barrett confided with chuck yeager after that Sidewinder ride earlier he had talked with me about the stress that time and waiting has put upon not only him but his family we originally had thought about doing this thing I expected it to be over in two weeks and I'm not sure if I would have known that it was going to drag out like it has that I would have been willing to put them through what they've gone through you know there's been a lot of tedious moments and a lot of anxiety and a lot of stress and you can see it any kids as the barrier gets stiffer of a speeds faster does it become harder or easier to climb back in and then cap select yourself in it each run is different I think the faster I go and a respect the the more confident I become because it's I'm just that much higher on the on the curve there's that each time we have a problem or each run I mean I just see more and more the commitment of the people around here and Bill Frederic and I mean he's doing everything possible to make that car you know just right and how lead him has been you know I can't say enough and to see the people the way that they're working on the car and the support we're getting and on the track the support from the Air Force and just everybody's caring and so on that that helps to to fortify me and in my family what worries you most and the thing that worries me most is that I would be if something happened to me I wouldn't be carrying through with the responsibilities that I have and the commitment I feel towards my family an earlier interview with Stan Barrett right now the car is back on the count toward our run for the sound barrier today for the moment as we await Stan Barrett to climb into that cockpit let's go back to another run in the progression toward the barrier this was the run that brought Stan Barrett to 677 miles per hour and he told us about this run himself I really didn't feel that good when I got in the car that morning in this discipline there is no room for personal feelings Stan had told me earlier when the rocket car takes off in his words it's a whole lot of gone in a hurry but for this ride all ride faster than anyone has taken over the face of the earth before the car was particularly difficult cantankerous so right from the start it was like a it's like a racehorse trying to get out of a little bitty just a tad of a delay now and that's always kind of exciting awesome power to the half mile marker to the mile at some 9000 revolutions per minute turning Stanley Barrett into a human vibrator right from the start I don't know whether it's the speed vibration transmitted from the lakebed into my back of my helmet which isn't that I'm healthy I'm suspension on my helmet but if got to where the flags were dancing all over and I really couldn't tell where I was in the course that I mean I couldn't 5 miles never went faster on land now we're just about set the rocket car is in position it is tied down Sidewinder is on board the air force tracking station or this radar ready to follow the exploits of Stan Barrett today and the safety equipment is being moved to its position we'll be back later Thank You dick Stockton's we are here at the Edwards Air Force Base on the Rogers dry like 12 minutes and Counting to the effort by Stan Baron in Hal Needham and Bill Frederick's rocket car to put a resounding exclamation mark to this decade as he attempts to go SOS the speed of sound Mach 1 in a land vehicle for the first time the rocket car is just about set Stan Barrett ready to leave his motor home back at the pre-staged area there you see him coming out now there's his wife the former Olympic skier penny McCoy here's the room there you see Joe Sargent who will be reading out the progression here and there is Raven Aiken who's been on the project now for seven years very confident looking stand there at moving to the line what does he face we'll earlier Chuck Yeager ran us through the course that standard faces will start out 2-0 mile marker and he accelerates and as he approaches the one mile marker he's already up to roughly 500 miles per hour and he then six seconds short of the traps here at the 2 mile marker he fires his Sidewinder motor and at the 2 mile marker he's hit his maximum speed hopefully at the speed of sound and at this point his Sidewinder quits and his hybrid engine quits and stand in pushes down on the rear of the pedal on the floor and 1.8 seconds his chute deploys and in that 1.8 seconds he's covered better than 2,000 feet or a little less than a half a mile then he begins decelerating and by the time he goes through the four mile mark he's down to blow 400 miles per hour then as he goes through the five mile marker he's down below 300 miles an hour and then as he hits a six mile marker he's down below 100 miles an hour and he starts putting on his brakes and he stops somewhere between six and a half and seven miles that's the challenge to be faced by Stan Barrett being driven to the start line by his father-in-law David McCoy of Bishop California right the temperature has moved to 37 degrees bringing the barrier to 750 miles per hour today there you see US Air Force radar tracking they'll be following the exploits today of the rocket car they have three ways of measuring speed from the radar from the telemetry onboard the vehicle and from trap speed there's penny mccoy barrett back in the pre-staged area where their children looks like they're in the rocketry game out there Chuck Yeager's yeah can the boys know an awful lot about rocket cars and airplanes their dad is now at the start line the zero mile marker for this run climbing out of the band and with him is his brother Jerry from st. Louis getting ready for this run going to be a tough one as it's really warmed up here on Rogers dry lake Stan there is Colonel Pete Knight the man who broke 4500 miles per hour right up over this Roger's dry lake Stan Barrett his challenge 750 miles per hour Kenny doing penny McCoy Barrett he or she and her family have had to face some real issues about this enterprise and earlier she talked to us about it well I think the reality and this is probably that the danger and the risk involved and you know the possibility of facing death and what would occur after it as far as we're concerned daddy's concerned what it takes the dedication the discipline to reach some goal such as this they've all been quite involved in that and I think they've learned a lot from that penny McCoy Barrett no one exemplifies the strength the commitment to this challenge as much as she does there Stan Barrett's close friend Hal Needham the man who has brought this whole program together earlier we asked her why he put up this every oh I suppose you say in 1976 when I drove a similar car to this and at that time was all fun and games since then my relationship with Frederick's and Stan it's really become an obsession with me see that they fulfill their dreams a nightmare for most but for these people it is a dream for Stan Barrett half Needham for the designer builder bill Frederick here is Stan Barrett about to climb into this rocket car hybrid engine as well as the Sidewinder motor to push him hopefully toward the barrier a very collected very nice guy understand they're not Chuck Yeager he's very dedicated the entire crew is very dedicated there is bill Frederic talking with one of the youngsters Mark Shuster and it's a very young crew but they've all put their hours in on this one working through the nights many times to get this machine already and now Stanbury about to take the cockpit corkscrew in himself actually it is getting easier Chuck there used to take ten or fifteen minutes and he's sliding in here with a relative image down into the cockpit a 13-point safety system will not only secure him but make Stan Barrett a part of the fabric of this machine there's a lot of instrumentation for him to deal with earlier Chuck Yeager clambered on board this same machine took a look at this instrumentation and pointed out to us the key devices to fire this rocket car this is what Chuck had to tell us switch four is activated that lets fuel back to the manual control valve that when Stanley pushes the throttle down and actuate to switch that lets the fuel directly into the rocket motor itself okay his last remaining thing and it's pressurized these fuel tank by turning this green dome loader down here to the right and cranking the pressure up to about 500 psi next thing you and yours Stanley's countdown 10 down to one we're going to be hearing that top down in just a little over four minutes right now in the procedure we are at a very special moment Stan Barrett usually shares a moment with the people back at the people here on the stand is now locked in the rocket car safety equipment is moving to its position less than two minutes to blast off for Stan Barrett in the rocket car of Bill Frederick and Hal Needham eras bill Frederick and we go down to the serious time as they prepare to arm the rocket car depending McCoy Garrett mile and a half away and free stage area letting the night you can yeah anyway balance you can see grilled cheap slab he needs them armed and triggered the pyro 40 that's the highest is overloaded that I did some peroxide thing so I'm if you're wrong double-checking there's the camera four miles away back to the start line US Air Force radar in the one we stole jelly very exciting you noticed the fairing these hairs around the side wounded rocket motor there to cut down Greg don't you know that thank you really straining there soon okay there's the plug blowing out the motor you know bill Frederic had an uncanny ability to listen to that monster Stan Barrett says after over 700 miles were seen have a problem here you'll be guided access of 1000 papers chute is deployed perfectly slowing down there he is coming to the five mile marker there you see petty Barret at her mother it certainly looks like it's over 700 miles-per-hour here today hasn't been enough for the barrier I am with hal needham and the man who first broke the sound barrier Chuck Yeager here at the end of the run they are extra kidding Stan Barret from this successful run and as we await word from Air Force radar as to the speed let's here take another look at that start where seemingly there was a problem as the trigger mechanism failed a fire for just a moment let's walk it back at that start a faulty valve creating this dramatic Stanley now the trio of the 700 barrier how hard is it going to be to get the rest of it I really don't know I guess it's like when you get 500 feet from the top of Mount Everest yeah it's it's all climbing you know I think that it's all hard for drivers dan baron speed now back to Nick stock one of the ultimate adventures in speed that adventure of Stan Baron to reach Mach Wan SOS is continuing here at Rogers dry lake Edwards Air Force Base that 39 foot rocket car powered by a hybrid engine as well as a Sidewinder missile shooting for over 700 miles per hour this man Stan Barrett who in 1979 at Bonneville Utah took hal needham scar to the fastest mark ever at nearly 640 miles per hour but at Bonneville the car shook and bounced over the ground so much in this run that a new place had to be found that's why we moved to Edwards Air Force Base the Rogers dry lake here the rocket car making the last run prior to the effort here to see today assuming a speed of over 700 miles per hour Stan Barrett in the car we are in the final moments of countdown the temperature standing at 20 degrees which makes the sound barrier seven hundred thirty one point nine miles per hour Kurt Swanson locks him into the car and we are ready for the final effort in this series to attain the sound barrier with a land vehicle a bit more than two minutes before builder designer bill Frederic will give the command to fire off this rocket car and send it on its way there's the telemetry room Joe sergeant standing by to read out the speed of the vehicle hoping to attain 730 1.9 miles per hour and the barrier and there you see the rocket car Baron encapsulated in the machine there's the front metal wheel which will be turning nine thousand revolutions plus per minute no tire with good standing the power plant sixty thousand horsepower here with a hybrid engine and the Sidewinder and there's penny McCoy Barrett with her children back in the pre-staged area a mile away from the zero mile marker with a car now West's our builder bill Freddie going down through the checklist for the final time there's car owner palnedo underwriting this project he's rented the equipment and facilities here at Edwards Air Force Base to put Stan Barrett in the record books what are Barrett's thoughts at this very moment in that car when we get the end of the countdown is a time that I also say a prayer and I just say Lord and into thy hands I commit myself and usually that's about on the count of two when he gets down to two that said and he says 1 and away I go and it's you know although there's a there's some brillz stress there that's a time that I really feel close to the Lord and I mean I guess when you're putting it all on the line it's kind of a special time the pitot tube on the nose of the rocket car the first object to penetrate the sound barrier Mach 1 if they make it and then the shock waves will throw down the fuselage and build up here at the cockpit will be a tremendous beating and buffeting for Barrett in that 20 inches wide 39 inch area for the driver Mach 1 the flare gun indicating one minute this is it there you see the hybrid engine coming alive the Sidewinder just above its 60,000 horsepower in this one final thrust for the barrier Air Force radar we'll be checking this run but after this one if it'll be back to the drawing board if they do not succeed a quick look at the course Barrett will cover today from the zero to the one mile marker in about ten seconds going 500 miles per hour then hits the Sidewinder three seconds later and if the two-mile mark should be going Mach one a half mile later one in 810 seconds he hits his chute and hopefully begins to slow down there is general Chuck Yeager the first man to go through the barrier back in 1947 we may be on the brink of a personal as well as the scientific and engineering achievement let's pick up the camera perfect start Stan Barrett roars toward the mile marker for the two we have seen this vehicle make some 18 runs but the reaction of 37 year old Bishop California Stan Barrett one word for it Wow slowing down in the four mile area talk about whipping rolling resistance what a phenomenal run for car builder bill Frederick and right here car owner Hal Needham going down to the six mile marker where the car has come to rest there you see the crew picking up the chute Stan Barrett still in the machine here at Rogers dry lake Edwards Air Force Base it looks like history has been made we're waiting for the story let's look again in replay from Air Force radar watch as 12,000 additional horsepower six thousand additional pounds of thrust is triggered by Stanley Barrett with that Sidewinder sixty thousand horsepower working for seven hundred thirty one point nine miles per hour did he make it palliative on the right bill Frederick's on the left assisting Stan Barrett out of the car I'm gonna announce what we got so far we don't have Flanders speed we ran out of fuel between two and four hundred feet before the lights we got 734 on radar 739 on airspeed we probably broke this beat us the dream of Bill Frederick and Hal Needham for years is attained by drivers Stan Barrett and a special salute from one lock Buster to another hours later I asked the man who first broke the sound barrier in 1947 General Chuck Yeager what does all this mean I'll tell you what it means Kim we've got a stack of data that high will be using for years on this thing going supersonic on the deck and another thing is God like Bill Frederick's his dream it builds this car in his own backyard financed by private citizen we bring it up here at Rogers dry lake at Edwards Air Force Base and drive it and then nowhere else in the world is something like that can take place except here in the good old USA for project SOS the speed of sound I'm Ken Squier and now back to dick Stockton's

Channel: Jake Ehrlich

Views: 633,284

Rating: 4.5908017 out of 5

Keywords: Stan Barrett, Paul Newman, Rolex Daytona

Id: xF5XNyi0iYw

Length: 41min 13sec (2473 seconds)

Published: Sat Aug 13 2016