A-12 was about 20 July 1963. I've interviewed Jim Eastham and
he claims to be the first. Lou Schalk was two days later. Norm
Nelson backed up Jim's claim and said that he'd tried to persuade
Schalk and Bill Park that an increase of 0.1 Mach number per flight
was much too conservative, but they wouldn't listen. Eastham did.







Jim doesn't get near the credit he deserves for his part during the testing of
the Blackbird aircraft as he should. I wish he would sit down and write a
book about all his aviation experience.....especially his missile developing
flights.

By the way, wasn't his first Mach 3 sustaining flight when the wire insulation
melted??? I blieve some kind of temp gauge had been calibrated incorrectly.
(???)