Chapter 33: ►

_Circus Day_

By the fall of 1958 Edwards Air Force Base had matured to the world’s foremost flight-test laboratory. It was busy and businesslike. Skilled, schooled Air Force test pilots, flying under rigid regulations, took off or landed every ten or fifteen minutes or so, creating the impression of a modern, tightly-run commercial airport. Brigadier General Stanley Holtoner had been replaced by another spit-and-polish Air Force commander, Brigadier General Marcus Cooper, and he, in turn, by Brigadier General John Carpenter. A new crop of Air Force planes came along to replace the original Century series. Now the Air Force men were in the advance stages of wringing out Republic’s F-105, Convair’s F-106, North American’s F-107, and Convair’s B-58 bomber. Private industry, operating from modern, well-furnished office buildings and hangars, was testing the new family of commercial jet airplanes, Boeing’s 707, Douglas’s DC-8, and Convair’s 880.

NASA’s big 400-man plant was idling, preparing for the arrival of the X-15. Here, more than any place else, one could feel the tremendous impact of the X-15. It was no longer just another research airplane. It was a revolutionary jump, a craft that would make all other airplanes at Edwards, or all that had ever seen Edwards, seem insignificant by comparison. Paul Bikle, who would replace Walt Williams as NASA’s director at Edwards, regarded the coming flights of the X-15 as one might look upon the voyages of Columbus or Magellan. Throughout the station there was a feeling that history was in the making.

Every micro-second of that coming voyage would be recorded in almost incredible detail. From the maximum launch point near Salt Lake to Edwards, the Air Force and NASA at a cost of over $3 million laid out a series of radar and telemetering stations along the X-15’s proposed flight-path. These stations would “track” the X-15 and electronically quiz the craft’s instrumentation. The X-15 would respond at the rate of several thousand data points every second. A battery of electronic machines and magnetic tape recorders was installed in a room adjoining the NASA tower at Edwards to absorb and correlate these data as they were collected. By these new methods one flight of the X-15 would provide more data than thirty flights of the old X-1 or Skyrocket. If something went wrong and the plane failed to return, the recorders would follow the plane to the last second of its life. The pilot who followed in the next X-15 would then have a broader base of flight knowledge. With the X-15 nothing was being left to chance. Seat-of-the-pants flight test was buried deep in Edwards’ past.

But before these spectacular long-range flights North American would first demonstrate the airplane. Until this was accomplished, the responsibility for the airplane and the flight-test program lay on our shoulders. Our own preparations for these first critical flights in the strange bird were not inconsiderable.

Like the other aircraft companies North American manned a large and well-organized flight-test establishment at Edwards. Our office and hangar space by this time was about twice the size of the original NACA High Speed Flight Station which Williams had created on the desert. The North American installation at Edwards was bossed by Ed Cokely, who had been supervising the initial flights of North American airplanes at Edwards since before the days of the jets. There were about one hundred flight-test engineers and maintenance men working under Cokely. During 1958 they were de-bugging and flying North American’s F-107 fighter and North American’s prototype T-39, a small two-engine commercial type jet transport-trainer, which we hoped to sell to the Air Force or the Navy as a trainer, or to private enterprise as an efficient company airplane.

Ed Cokely picked 35-year-old Q. C. Harvey to organize and boss our X-15 flight-test group at Edwards. Q.C., a short, energetic man with graying crew-cut hair, was an experienced hand. He had come to the desert ten years earlier with the McDonnell XF-85. Later he worked in flight tests on McDonnell’s F2H Banshee and a more advanced version, the F3H. Skip Ziegler had recruited Q.C. for the Bell rocket-test flight team in 1951. Q.C. had cut his teeth on the Queenie, which blew up and nearly killed Joe Cannon, and the X-1-A, in which Yeager and Murray made their speed and altitude records. He joined North American in 1953 to work in the flight-test group on the last model of the F-86, and later the F-100 and the F-107.

Q.C. was a live-wire type who knew better than most the importance of the X-15 to North American and to the nation. Early in the fall of 1958 he began a series of planning meetings with the Air Force and NASA to lay out the North American phase of the X-15 flight program. From that point on I divided my time between the North American plant in Los Angeles and the North American flight-test facility at Edwards. I commuted between two desks in my private red, white, and blue single-engine Bonanza which the Air Force very kindly permitted me to land on the Edwards base. I did not actually consider the Bonanza a luxury. Without it I could never have met my ever-growing responsibilities in the X-15 project.

* * * * *

The table in the conference room at the Edwards North American flight-test facility was twelve feet long. At each place there was a pad and pencil for jotting down notes. Q.C. sat at the head of the table. The rest of us, Air Force and NASA flight-test supervisors, the designated X-15 pilots, the B-52 mother-plane pilots, the “chase” plane pilots, North American’s Sam Richter, who would man a communications van out on the lake bed, and Bill Berkowitz, who would operate the X-15 launch panel in the B-52, took places around the table. Another dozen-odd men, including the pilot of the emergency helicopter, a representative of the security division of Edwards, a medical officer, and the leading X-15 mechanics, sat in chairs along the wall. There was a blackboard against the far wall behind Q.C.’s chair, on which someone had chalked a crude map of the Edwards area.

Each of the men in the room was the leader in his particular field. Each represented a separate organization with special responsibilities during an X-15 flight. Thus for every man in the room there were another fifty or one hundred men behind the scenes, not counting the radar and optical trackers, the cameramen, telemeter operators, and the Lord knows who else. The Edwards flight-test operation had become a vast pyramid of people supporting one man at the apex, the pilot. Everything was planned down to a gnat’s eyelash.

The general outline of North American’s initial X-15 flights had long been established. Every detail of it was designed to save time, to cut our schedule to the bare bone. We would begin with X-15 number one. We would mate her to the B-52, take her aloft and check out all ship’s machinery under actual “captive” conditions. We would make certain the cabin pressurization, pressure suit, instrumentation, radios, shackles, communications, oxygen and Lox top-off connections with the B-52, and the X-15’s multifarious electrical systems, worked. When we were satisfied, then we would take X-15 number one aloft, devoid of fuel, and drop it on a powerless glide flight, simulating the beginning and conclusion of an actual rocket-test flight. Meanwhile, we would keep X-15 number two on the ground to check out the fuel tanks and rocket-propulsion system. The theory was that any weaknesses which showed up either in the air on these captive flights, or on the ground during the engine checks, could be quickly remedied simultaneously on both airplanes, and on the third X-15 which was still in the factory awaiting the XLR-99 engine.

“All the North American flights will be conducted locally,” Q.C. said, addressing the room. We were reviewing the whole plan for the benefit of some new people and some others who had no reason to be concerned until then. “Following the captive flights and initial glide flight, each launch will be made over a predesignated dry lake. The object is to land each time on Rogers Dry Lake, alongside the base here.” Q.C. used a pointer on the blackboard.

“We will have to have emergency vehicles--an ambulance and fire trucks--in readiness at B-52 take-off time. These will line up on the Edwards runway during B-52 take-off. Afterwards they will shift and take up position on the lake bed along the anticipated glide-path and touchdown point of the X-15. Sam--” Q.C. looked at Richter--“your van will go to the lake at B-52 take-off time. Now, the helicopter will hover at the edge of the lake bed on the X-15 approach end. In event of landing emergency, it should be able to reach the X-15 within sixty seconds or less.” North Americans flight surgeon, Toby Freedman, and Air Force flight surgeons would be in the helicopter.

“The personnel in the helicopter should become familiar now with emergency procedures for removing the X-15 cockpit canopy in case the pilot is unable to open it from the inside. The helicopter pilot should, of course, radio immediately a visual report on the landing. Sam, you’ll be able to see the landing from the van. You report, too.

“The chase-plane missions will be fairly routine. We’ll use F-104s. Two airplanes will be assigned to close chase by the X-15 at drop and rocket light-off. The third chase, an F-100F, will serve as photographic chase and get what pictures he can without interfering with the close chase. The only problem I see here is that the F-104s will have some trouble hanging in the air at launch altitude, slowed to B-52 speed at launch.”

He went on, describing action to be taken in a score of various emergencies, including everything from a B-52 engine failure on take-off to an outright mid-air explosion of the X-15 at light-off. Then he distributed a mimeographed “check-off” list thirty pages long, which all of us would carry during the flight. On each flight we would work our way through that long list, moving on to an item only after the previous item had been completed. This list represented the combined thinking and checking of a hundred people. If we followed it, the danger would be reduced to a minimum, or as near minimum as it is possible to come with a rocket airplane, and we would learn the most for every minute in the air.

“I will take up station in the North American tower,” Q.C. went on. “I will have, sitting at a table near my mike, a specialist on each system of the X-15. If anything goes wrong on the ship prior to launch, I will designate the appropriate engineer to get on the mike and talk to Scotty. That way we might be able to fix it and avoid an abort. Incidentally, if we do have to abort a flight, we will always go right through launch countdown, right down to the point of drop, without dropping. This will give us more detailed experience and an opportunity to check out systems. We will not follow this procedure if the abort is the result of an emergency. In that case, we will follow emergency procedures for getting the B-52 and the X-15 back on the ground.

“At Scotty’s request we are deliberately restricting the number of men authorized to talk on the radio circuit to hold down confusion. I will be on the circuit continuously. Sam Richter is authorized to come on the air, if necessary. The only others are Scotty in the X-15, the B-52 pilot, and of course the chase pilots. As far as the ground is concerned, I want everything to be funneled through me. In the air Scotty will have the final say-so. Any questions?”

There were many questions and this meeting, and a hundred others like it, churned on for long hours. As a result never in the history of Edwards was there finer co-operation between government agency and contractor.

* * * * *

October 15, 1958--one year and eleven days after Sputnik--was circus day at the Los Angeles Division of North American. X-15 number one was officially “rolled out” of the plant ready, or almost ready, to fly. All activity in the plant slowed for this festive occasion. The chips were swept from the floor. All the grandees of North American were on hand. A plane-load of aviation reporters flew in from the East to herald the event in headlines the nation over. Senators and Congressmen and other VIP’s crowded a special grandstand facing the X-15 to hear Vice President Richard Nixon, who came to California especially for the event, proclaim that the X-15 “recaptured the U. S. lead in space.” There were special exhibits of the pressure suit and other parts of the X-15. VIP’s tried their hands in the X-15 cockpit simulator in the assembly building. Then all attended a gala luncheon during which all praised one another and the subcontractors. For the X-15 team it was a moving occasion.

During the ceremonies, Vice President Nixon said to me: “You certainly have a dangerous job.”

I couldn’t repress the reply that popped to mind: “My job is not nearly so risky as yours, sir.”

Six years from inception, four years from final approval by the old NACA Aerodynamics Subcommittee, three years almost to the day the contract was let, and thus right on schedule, the X-15 was at last a reality. What’s more, her airframe, thanks to Charlie Feltz, was 325 pounds under our design specification. Even with the two heavier X-1 rocket chambers and the additional load of instrumentation, the airplane was only a hundred pounds overweight, a fantastic, unprecedented achievement in the aircraft industry. But the cost was great. The X-15 represented over 10,000,000 engineering man-hours. In time each of the three airplanes cost the government $40 million. In terms of weight, each would be worth three times as much as solid gold.

While I was posing for photographers alongside the X-15 that day, a reporter asked:

“Mr. Crossfield, why is the ship painted black? Most of the research airplanes were painted white like ice-boxes, weren’t they? I thought white reflected heat and that was what you were trying to do--get away from the heat.”

“Well,” I said, “this is a kind of complicated thing. It’s true that white does reflect heat, solar heat, for instance. But up where this ship will be, the sun will be only a tiny, intense beam of heat in a vast zero-cold universe. Our main problem is not solar heat, but frictional heat, the heat we will run into flying through the air--from bumping into molecules of air. The way it works out, this black paint will throw away that heat faster than white paint. In other words, it radiates the heat from friction at a faster rate. Is that clear?”

I’m afraid it wasn’t clear. Our beast, from paint job to final mission, was simply too complicated to explain in a word. This was frustrating, in a way, because we were proud of what she was. But in the press she had been labeled a “space ship,” and a space ship she would remain in the public eye, although in actuality she was a research tool, deliberately designed to search out trouble. In time, I was confident, the X-15’s real mission would be grasped.

No matter what she was called, she was a beautiful thing, a masterpiece, if you will, and I remained long after the photographers departed to drink her in and contemplate the trying days I knew lay ahead at Edwards.

Not long after the VIP’s moved on, the circus folded and the men towed the X-15 to a flat-bed truck. Then they wrapped her in a tarpaulin and drove her to Edwards. Two weeks later X-15 number two followed.

* * * * *

On the eve of our flight-test operations, sad to say, we lost one member of the X-15 pilot team. Iven Kincheloe was killed while flying an F-104. Just after take-off his engine flamed out. The F-104 has a downward ejection seat. Too close to the ground for escape in that direction, Kinch rolled the F-104 on its back, so that he could eject upwards, away from the ground. He got out and his chute opened, but it was too late. His loss was mourned not only throughout the Air Force, but also at North American. Although I, as first pilot, had received from the press most of the X-15 “spaceman” build-up, we believed that Kinch would be the one to make the maximum-performance X-15 missions.

When Kinch died, his “back-up,” Air Force Major Bob White, moved up to take his place. White is a handsome pilot, swarthy, with deep, piercing blue eyes. He has a fine wife and children. If he lacked rocket-airplane experience, he soon made it up. He studied the X-15 intently and checked out in a Clark pressure suit.

Following Kinch’s death many people asked me if I were not disappointed that I had not been “selected” to make the maximum flights of the X-15. Some reporters indignantly complained to NASA that it was completely “unjust” to restrict me, considering my long experience in rocket airplanes, as against, say, Bob White, who had never flown a rocket plane. I would like to say here once and for all, and with a fervent hope that this will end the matter, yes, I was disappointed. No man with my background could have felt anything but disappointment. For many reasons I believed I was best qualified to make these maximum flights. I would have accepted the assignment eagerly.

But in fairness to NASA, let me say that I went into the X-15 program with my eyes wide open. From the outset I knew the government pilots would be top dog. Walt Williams had predicted before I left NACA that I might _never_ fly the X-15. When the contract was let, it specifically stated that North American demonstrations would be limited in speed and altitude. Only a few weeks after I joined the program, as I have said, these restrictions were set at Mach 2 and 100,000 feet. That I would be “the first man in outer space,” that is to say, that I would make the maximum demonstration flights of the X-15, was an invention of the press. I repeatedly stressed that this was not the case, but the press refused, or couldn’t bring itself, to believe me. The Air Force and NASA pilots were ticketed for that role, and I simply accepted that fact of life.

To repeat: I knew from the beginning that in all probability I would never make the maximum flights of the X-15. But I was promised, unequivocally, the _first_ flights of the craft. As I suspected, and as it turned out, these flights would provide danger and challenge enough. When Kinch died, I hoped these restrictions might be lifted. When they were not, I didn’t pout like Achilles in his tent, as some reporters have implied. A maximum flight, a new speed or altitude was not my point. The point which concerned me, and one I have never been able to get across, is that I would participate in both the building and test-flying of the airplane. That was the goal I sought--the closing of the circle of my life.