Out of This World

The Navy claimed a big record last week. Although the figures were secret, the carefully worded announcement said that at Edwards Air Force Base in the Mojave Desert, the Douglas Skyrocket (D558-2) had "attained the highest speed and altitude ever recorded by a piloted plane."

The little (4O-ft.) white Skyrocket had waited a long time for its day of glory. Built as a Navy experimental ship, it made its first take-off from Muroc's long, dry lake bed almost three years ago. Even then it could crack through the sonic barrier, but for a supersonic research ship, its performance was unspectacular. The stubby little rocket-powered Bell X-1 had already been dropped from the belly of a B29, and had carried its pilot close to twice the speed of sound (TIME, April 1, 1949). By comparison the newer Skyrocket dawdled.

Early Handicap. But the Skyrocket had started its career with a handicap. Unlike the X-1, it was designed to take off and climb with its own power. A turbojet engine was crammed into the narrow needle-nosed fuselage. There were rocket motors too, for speed runs, but they gulped fuel at a ton a minute from tanks cut down to accommodate the powerful turbojet and its accessories. Rocket thrust was never available to the pilot long enough for the plane to approach top speed.

Late in 1949 the Navy decided that its research plane had loafed long enough, and had collected all the data it could at the lower limits of supersonic flight. Then the Skyrocket went back to the shop. Its turbojet was removed, the air intakes (not needed for rocket propulsion) were covered over, and the 40-ft. fuselage was fitted with extra tanks that doubled its capacity for the volatile rocket fuels.

Last month, like its predecessor, the X-1, the Skyrocket was hooked up into the enlarged bomb-bay of a 6-29 and hauled 35,000 feet into the cold, thin air over the Mojave. Test Pilot Bill Bridgeman was gunning for an altitude where the outside air temperature is 67DEG F. below zero and the pressure low enough to make a man's blood boil; though the little plane's cockpit was pressurized and air-conditioned, Bridgeman wore a specially designed pressure-suit with a helmet like a deep-sea diver's. A tiny windshield wiper cleared the face plate of the condensed moisture from his breath.

Long Glide Home. Cut loose from the bomber, Bridgeman switched on his rocket motors, climbed quickly to the test altitude (about 12 miles). Then he pushed over into level flight. The tiny (25-ft. spread), sharply swept wings, the sleek fuselage that carries its rakish tail surfaces high above the wing wake, met little resistance from the rarefied atmosphere. For three thundering minutes the Skyrocket boomed along. Before its rocket fuel ran dry it was probably screaming through empty upper air at 1,500 m.p.h. or more. Power gone, it glided in lazy spirals back to its base at Muroc, far down in the desert heat.

The test data remained secret. The Navy would only say that Pilot Bridgeman had climbed higher and flown faster than any mortal. But he had done it as a scientist, busy watching his instruments, recording information for later study. There had been no time for even a glance at the sky, and Bridgeman had only one tantalizing comment on his high, wild ride: in the first few seconds of rocket flight, he said, "you feel like you're going right on out of this world."

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