And what country can preserve its liberties if their rulers are not warned from time to time that their people preserve the spirit of resistance? Let them take arms. The remedy is to set them right as to facts, pardon and pacify them. What signify a few lives lost in a century or two? The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots and tyrants.
There were a number of stories from pilots in fast planes of the '44-'46 time period where they would get up to and maybe just hitting the sound barrier in a long dive. They couldn't sustain it like the X1 could.
My Dad was one of those pilots. He came up through the Army Air Corp/Air Force beginnings where pilots flew by "the seat of their pants". They would pick any aircraft sitting on the ramp and take it up to see what it could do..There were no reading of flight manuals or being "checked out" in any aircraft before flight. He told us stories of straight down dives in P47s and P51s approaching Mach1and how the aircraft would start vibrating and shaking when pushing the aircraft beyond its designed limits. Go fly and then RTFM. Always there were warnings of exceeding design limits. He became a go to pilot to troubleshoot a plane for maintenance when a green pilot complained about a plane misbehaving during a flight. He was so good at diagnosing defects, he was forcible "promoted" to Chief of Maintenance for a fighter squadron. Air Force grounded him and promoted him to make him take the position. Broke his heart when he was no longer allowed to fly. It was always his first love.
I've flown with a few pilots (in the Coastguard) where the helicopter was part of them, I wondered what they were going to do after they retired and didn't have a helo to go flying in anymore....
Lovely B50 and X1 but the background is interesting as well. There's a B45 minus its outer wings lurking behind.
ReplyDeleteCan’t beat Hydraulics.
ReplyDeleteThat was my first thought as well...
DeleteSo the book I have on Yeager indicated that another guy in a P-47 may have been the first to break the sound barrier.
ReplyDeleteThere were a number of stories from pilots in fast planes of the '44-'46 time period where they would get up to and maybe just hitting the sound barrier in a long dive. They couldn't sustain it like the X1 could.
DeleteMy Dad was one of those pilots. He came up through the Army Air Corp/Air Force beginnings where pilots flew by "the seat of their pants". They would pick any aircraft sitting on the ramp and take it up to see what it could do..There were no reading of flight manuals or being "checked out" in any aircraft before flight. He told us stories of straight down dives in P47s and P51s approaching Mach1and how the aircraft would start vibrating and shaking when pushing the aircraft beyond its designed limits. Go fly and then RTFM. Always there were warnings of exceeding design limits. He became a go to pilot to troubleshoot a plane for maintenance when a green pilot complained about a plane misbehaving during a flight. He was so good at diagnosing defects, he was forcible "promoted" to Chief of Maintenance for a fighter squadron. Air Force grounded him and promoted him to make him take the position. Broke his heart when he was no longer allowed to fly. It was always his first love.
DeleteI've flown with a few pilots (in the Coastguard) where the helicopter was part of them, I wondered what they were going to do after they retired and didn't have a helo to go flying in anymore....
DeleteDamn we were great once weren't we?
ReplyDeleteOur once great nation was "taken down a notch" with "Nobama."
DeleteSadly, I think it started before that. Johnson had a goal that I think few shared.
DeleteIs anyone going to ask what in the hell is that plane sitting on, and how do you get it down?
ReplyDeleteOne heck of a hydraulic lift!
DeleteNope, we're all old farts and we've seen this picture in print before, pre-Internet.
DeleteOn another note, a thought 'fast movers' were F-4's and F-104's....
"Got any Beeman's?"
ReplyDelete