For Range

Testing long-range rockets in horizontal flight puts a strain on geography. Many vertical flights have been made from White Sands, N.Mex., but not even in the thinly inhabited Southwest is there an area where a rocket can be fired for distance. So last week the Air Force made its first horizontal rocket test from Cocoa, Fla. (east of Orlando), firing a two-stage rocket over the empty Atlantic north of the Bahamas.

The rocket was a "piggyback" combination : a small Wac Corporal set in the nose of a German V2. An earlier test the week before had been a fizzle (a fuel pump went haywire), but this time the V-2 roared up and turned east over the ocean. In one minute and 20 seconds it reached an altitude of 51,000 ft. and a speed of 1,700 m.p.h.

Then the Wac Corporal, set off by preset instruments or radio control, separated from the V2, adding its speed to that of the larger rocket. How fast and how far it went is still the Air Force's secret, but one spokesman mentioned an intended range greater than 175 miles. According to one informed observer, the Wac Corporal probably jreached a speed of 5,000 m.p.h.

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