High altitude jump from a nearly forgotten age

I caught this photo on the Soaring Wikipedia. As it happened, I knew then
Capt. Kittinger during these tests. I thought him to be a very friendly and
enthusiastic aviator though seemingly determined to 'push the envelope'
whenever he had the chance. He was a real "Jet Jocky" and a small boy's
hero.

You will notice, if you look carefully, that his right glove has detached
from his pressure suit exposing bare skin to virtual space conditions at
102,000 feet. The only result was a swollen hand that was painful for a few
days.

It is not true that the unnamed "Air Force Empolyee" given credit for the
photo was a lowly GS3 wearing shorts and T-shirt while riding in the open
gondola as a contemporary Mad Magazine suggested. The unmanned camera was
triggered by the lanyard seen in the photo.

See: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:Kittinger-jump.jpg

Where are today's heros?

Bill Daniels

On Wed, 21 Mar 2007 14:18:36 -0600, "Bill Daniels"
bildan@comcast-dot-net wrote:

I caught this photo on the Soaring Wikipedia. As it happened, I knew then
Capt. Kittinger during these tests. I thought him to be a very friendly and
enthusiastic aviator though seemingly determined to 'push the envelope'
whenever he had the chance. He was a real "Jet Jocky" and a small boy's
hero.

You will notice, if you look carefully, that his right glove has detached
from his pressure suit exposing bare skin to virtual space conditions at
102,000 feet. The only result was a swollen hand that was painful for a few
days.

It is not true that the unnamed "Air Force Empolyee" given credit for the
photo was a lowly GS3 wearing shorts and T-shirt while riding in the open
gondola as a contemporary Mad Magazine suggested. The unmanned camera was
triggered by the lanyard seen in the photo.

See: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:Kittinger-jump.jpg

Where are today's heros?

Bill Daniels

Kittinger is still around in the GA biz...last I heard he was an
active balloonist and managing an airshow operation in Florida.

rj

Remembering those days make tears come to my eyes.

My High School buddy Wolfgang Braun, the son of a 'Operation Paperclip'
scientist, and I would put on our CAP uniforms and present ourselves at the
front gate of Holloman AFB requesting to "watch operations". ("Operations"
at the Air Force Missile Test Center could be exciting.) Shortly, an Air
Force staff car would arrive, sometimes with Brig.Gen Davis's star on it,
and drive us to the operations shack on the flight line.

An officer or Staff Sgt. would then escort us around. I got to climb into
the cockpits of whatever was there. The monsterous 10 engine B36's
enthralled me. Sometimes we hitched rides on USAF aircraft. I got to sit in
the copilots seat of an old C47 and make lazy turns over the New Mexico
desert.

One day a couple of civilians showed up with some 16mm film of gliders to
show the staff - we got invited. It was Larry Edgar and, Joachim Kuettner
doing a show-and-tell about their wave flights in the Sierras.

To a high school sophmore, that was life changing. Don't tell me youth
recruiting doesn't work.

Bill Daniels


"Ralph Jones" wrote in message
...
On Wed, 21 Mar 2007 14:18:36 -0600, "Bill Daniels"
bildan@comcast-dot-net wrote:

I caught this photo on the Soaring Wikipedia. As it happened, I knew then
Capt. Kittinger during these tests. I thought him to be a very friendly
and
enthusiastic aviator though seemingly determined to 'push the envelope'
whenever he had the chance. He was a real "Jet Jocky" and a small boy's
hero.

You will notice, if you look carefully, that his right glove has detached
from his pressure suit exposing bare skin to virtual space conditions at
102,000 feet. The only result was a swollen hand that was painful for a
few
days.

It is not true that the unnamed "Air Force Empolyee" given credit for the
photo was a lowly GS3 wearing shorts and T-shirt while riding in the open
gondola as a contemporary Mad Magazine suggested. The unmanned camera was
triggered by the lanyard seen in the photo.

See: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:Kittinger-jump.jpg

Where are today's heros?

Bill Daniels

Kittinger is still around in the GA biz...last I heard he was an
active balloonist and managing an airshow operation in Florida.

rj

On Wed, 21 Mar 2007 16:03:38 -0600, "Bill Daniels"
bildan@comcast-dot-net wrote:

Remembering those days make tears come to my eyes.

My High School buddy Wolfgang Braun, the son of a 'Operation Paperclip'
scientist,

I worked for a couple of Paperclippers for about six months, doing my
Master's thesis project in a lab at WPAFB. My thesis advisor was Herr
Erich Soehngen (Herr not Doktor because the Eighth Air Force had
terminated his dissertation project prematurely), and the head of the
lab was Hans von Ohain, whose projects in the Forties had borne a bit
more fruit...

rj

Bill Daniels wrote:

I caught this photo on the Soaring Wikipedia. As it happened, I knew then
Capt. Kittinger during these tests.

[....]

See: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:Kittinger-jump.jpg

Where are today's heros?


Obscured by the system, TV, and the Internet, yet not unknown to the
cognoscenti. Then we had Life magazine: now the information burden
of the mundane obscures the truly significant.

The rest of Kittinger's story is nearly as formidable as his balloon
jump.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joseph_Kittinger



Jack

I was a young kid in Alamogordo when this happened. His daughter sat
next to me in class. She was very upset for a couple of days after this
happened when she realized just how dangerous it had been.



As I remember at the time, the "story" that was released to the press
was that his water container had malfunctioned in the gondola and he had
to bail out because of impending dehydration. Of course, we later found
out that the jump had been planned to test high altitude reentry.



This was a great time in the space race... And a magical time for a
young kid... Imagine, on any given day you might here sonic booms and
look up to see "chase fighters" going supersonic chasing after the
contrails of missiles fired from the White Sands Missile range.



Still gives me goose bumps thinking about it.



Larry Goddard

"zero one"

USA




"Bill Daniels" bildan@comcast-dot-net wrote in message
:

I caught this photo on the Soaring Wikipedia. As it happened, I knew then
Capt. Kittinger during these tests. I thought him to be a very friendly and
enthusiastic aviator though seemingly determined to 'push the envelope'
whenever he had the chance. He was a real "Jet Jocky" and a small boy's
hero.

You will notice, if you look carefully, that his right glove has detached
from his pressure suit exposing bare skin to virtual space conditions at
102,000 feet. The only result was a swollen hand that was painful for a few
days.

It is not true that the unnamed "Air Force Empolyee" given credit for the
photo was a lowly GS3 wearing shorts and T-shirt while riding in the open
gondola as a contemporary Mad Magazine suggested. The unmanned camera was
triggered by the lanyard seen in the photo.

See: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:Kittinger-jump.jpg

Where are today's heros?

Bill Daniels

On Mar 21, 2:56 pm, "01-- Zero One" wrote:
Imagine, on any given day you might here sonic booms and
look up to see "chase fighters" going supersonic chasing after the
contrails of missiles fired from the White Sands Missile range.

Not quite in the same league perhaps but I have fond teenage memories
of seeing, and hearing, the Avro Vulcan that was the testbed for the
Concorde Olympus engine flying over my home town. That was the same
place I used to cycle to the airport (Locking) to watch T21s winch
launch and the Auster giving pleasure flights. I got hooked on flying
then but it took another 15 years to start to live the dream.

Andy

Where are today's heros?

My heroes in soaring are the guys out west doing amazing cross country
flights. Gordon, Kemp, and others. Of course there is Jim Hard doing
DIAMOND downwind flights in his 1-26 from Minnesota, and then sitting
down with me at supper to hear about my puny flights.

And you know what? This young punk reads books about the hero's of
your youth, Kittinger, Kuettner etc, and idolizes them as well.

Where are today's heros?

Bill Weaver, IMHO



This has nothing to do with soaring but is a riveting aviation story non
the less:



Among professional aviators, there's a well-worn saying: Flying is
simply hours of boredom punctuated by moments of stark terror. And yet,
I don't recall too many periods of boredom during my 30-year career with
Lockheed, most of which was spent as a test pilot.

By far, the most memorable flight occurred on Jan. 25, 1966. Jim Zwayer,
a Lockheed flight test reconnaissance and navigation systems specialist,
and I were evaluating those systems on an SR-71 Blackbird test from
Edwards AFB, Calif. We also were investigating procedures designed to
reduce trim drag and improve high-Mach cruise performance. The latter
involved flying with the center-of-gravity (CG) located further aft than
normal, which reduced the Blackbird's longitudinal stability.

We took off from Edwards at 11:20 a.m. and completed the mission's first
leg without incident. After refueling from a KC-135 tanker, we turned
eastbound, accelerated to a Mach 3.2-cruise speed and climbed to 78,000
ft., our initial cruise-climb altitude.

Several minutes into cruise, the right engine inlet's automatic control
system malfunctioned, requiring a switch to manual control. The SR-71's
inlet configuration was automatically adjusted during supersonic flight
to decelerate air flow in the duct, slowing it to subsonic speed before
reaching the engine's face. This was accomplished by the inlet's
center-body spike translating aft, and by modulating the inlet's forward
bypass doors. Normally, these actions were scheduled automatically as a
function of Mach number, positioning the normal shock wave (where air
flow becomes subsonic) inside the inlet to ensure optimum engine
performance.

Without proper scheduling, disturbances inside the inlet could result in
the shock wave being expelled forward--a phenomenon known as an "inlet
unstart." That causes an instantaneous loss of engine thrust, explosive
banging noises and violent yawing of the aircraft--like being in a train
wreck. Unstarts were not uncommon at that time in the SR-71's
development, but a properly functioning system would recapture the shock
wave and restore normal operation.

On the planned test profile, we entered a programmed 35-deg. bank turn
to the right. An immediate unstart occurred on the right engine, forcing
the aircraft to roll further right and start to pitch up. I jammed the
control stick as far left and forward as it would go. No response. I
instantly knew we were in for a wild ride.

I attempted to tell Jim what was happening and to stay with the airplane
until we reached a lower speed and altitude. I didn't think the chances
of surviving an ejection at Mach 3.18 and 78,800 ft. were very good.
However, g-forces built up so rapidly that my words came out garbled and
unintelligible, as confirmed later by the cockpit voice recorder.

The cumulative effects of system malfunctions, reduced longitudinal
stability, increased angle-of-attack in the turn, supersonic speed, high
altitude and other factors imposed forces on the airframe that exceeded
flight control authority and the Stability Augmentation System's ability
to restore control.

Everything seemed to unfold in slow motion. I learned later the time
from event onset to catastrophic departure from controlled flight was
only 2-3 sec. Still trying to communicate with Jim, I blacked out,
succumbing to extremely high g-forces. The SR-71 then literally
disintegrated around us. From that point, I was just along for the ride.

My next recollection was a hazy thought that I was having a bad dream.
Maybe I'll wake up and get out of this mess, I mused. Gradually
regaining consciousness, I realized this was no dream; it had really
happened. That also was disturbing, because I could not have survived
what had just happened. Therefore, I must be dead. Since I didn't feel
bad--just a detached sense of euphoria--I decided being dead wasn't so
bad after all.



AS FULL AWARENESS took hold, I realized I was not dead, but had somehow
separated from the airplane. I had no idea how this could have happened;
I hadn't initiated an ejection. The sound of rushing air and what
sounded like straps flapping in the wind confirmed I was falling, but I
couldn't see anything. My pressure suit's face plate had frozen over and
I was staring at a layer of ice.

The pressure suit was inflated, so I knew an emergency oxygen cylinder
in the seat kit attached to my parachute harness was functioning. It not
only supplied breathing oxygen, but also pressurized the suit,
preventing my blood from boiling at extremely high altitudes. I didn't
appreciate it at the time, but the suit's pressurization had also
provided physical protection from intense buffeting and g-forces. That
inflated suit had become my own escape capsule.

My next concern was about stability and tumbling. Air density at high
altitude is insufficient to resist a body's tumbling motions, and
centrifugal forces high enough to cause physical injury could develop
quickly. For that reason, the SR-71's parachute system was designed to
automatically deploy a small-diameter stabilizing chute shortly after
ejection and seat separation. Since I had not intentionally activated
the ejection system--and assuming all automatic functions depended on a
proper ejection sequence--it occurred to me the stabilizing chute may
not have deployed.

However, I quickly determined I was falling vertically and not tumbling.
The little chute must have deployed and was doing its job. Next concern:
the main parachute, which was designed to open automatically at 15,000
ft. Again, I had no assurance the automatic-opening function would work.

I couldn't ascertain my altitude because I still couldn't see through
the iced-up face plate. There was no way to know how long I had been
blacked-out, or how far I had fallen. I felt for the manual-activation
D-ring on my chute harness, but with the suit inflated and my hands
numbed by cold, I couldn't locate it. I decided I'd better open the face
plate, try to estimate my height above the ground, then locate that "D"
ring. Just as I reached for the face plate, I felt the reassuring sudden
deceleration of main-chute deployment.

I raised the frozen face plate and discovered its uplatch was broken.
Using one hand to hold that plate up, I saw I was descending through a
clear, winter sky with unlimited visibility. I was greatly relieved to
see Jim's parachute coming down about a quarter of a mile away. I didn't
think either of us could have survived the aircraft's breakup, so seeing
Jim had also escaped lifted my spirits incredibly.

I could also see burning wreckage on the ground a few miles from where
we would land. The terrain didn't look at all inviting--a desolate, high
plateau dotted with patches of snow and no signs of habitation.

I tried to rotate the parachute and look in other directions. But with
one hand devoted to keeping the face plate up and both hands numb from
high-altitude, subfreezing temperatures, I couldn't manipulate the
risers enough to turn. Before the breakup, we'd started a turn in the
New Mexico-Colorado-Oklahoma-Texas border region. The SR-71 had a
turning radius of about 100 mi. at that speed and altitude, so I wasn't
even sure what state we were going to land in. But, because it was about
3:00 p.m., I was certain we would be spending the night out here.

At about 300 ft. above the ground, I yanked the seat kit's release
handle and made sure it was still tied to me by a long lanyard.
Releasing the hea vy kit ensured I wouldn't land with it attached to my
derriere, which could break a leg or cause other injuries. I then tried
to recall what survival items were in that kit, as well as techniques I
had been taught in survival training.

Looking down, I was startled to see a fairly large animal--perhaps an
antelope--directly under me. Evidently, it was just as startled as I was
because it literally took off in a cloud of dust.

My first-ever parachute landing was pretty smooth. I landed on fairly
soft ground, managing to avoid rocks, cacti and antelopes. My chute was
still billowing in the wind, though. I struggled to collapse it with one
hand, holding the still-frozen face plate up with the other.

"Can I help you?" a voice said.

Was I hearing things? I must be hallucinating. Then I looked up and saw
a guy walking toward me, wearing a cowboy hat. A helicopter was idling a
short distance behind him. If I had been at Edwards and told the
search-and-rescue unit that I was going to bail out over the Rogers Dry
Lake at a particular time of day, a crew couldn't have gotten to me as
fast as that cowboy-pilot had.

The gentleman was Albert Mitchell, Jr., owner of a huge cattle ranch in
northeastern New Mexico. I had landed about 1.5 mi. from his ranch
house--and from a hangar for his two-place Hughes helicopter. Amazed to
see him, I replied I was having a little trouble with my chute. He
walked over and collapsed the canopy, anchoring it with several rocks.
He had seen Jim and me floating down and had radioed the New Mexico
Highway Patrol, the Air Force and the nearest hospital.

Extracting myself from the parachute harness, I discovered the source of
those flapping-strap noises heard on the way down. My seat belt and
shoulder harness were still draped around me, attached and latched. The
lap belt had been shredded on each side of my hips, where the straps had
fed through knurled adjustment rollers. The shoulder harness had
shredded in a similar manner across my back. The ejection seat had never
left the airplane; I had been ripped out of it by the extreme forces,
seat belt and shoulder harness still fastened.

I also noted that one of the two lines that supplied oxygen to my
pressure suit had come loose, and the other was barely hanging on. If
that second line had become detached at high altitude, the deflated
pressure suit wouldn't have provided any protection. I knew an oxygen
supply was critical for breathing and suit-pressurization, but didn't
appreciate how much physical protection an inflated pressure suit could
provide. That the suit could withstand forces sufficient to disintegrate
an airplane and shred heavy nylon seat belts, yet leave me with only a
few bruises and minor whiplash was impressive. I truly appreciated
having my own little escape capsule.

After helping me with the chute, Mitchell said he'd check on Jim. He
climbed into his helicopter, flew a short distance away and returned
about 10 min. later with devastating news: Jim was dead. Apparently, he
had suffered a broken neck during the aircraft's disintegration and was
killed instantly. Mitchell said his ranch foreman would soon arrive to
watch over Jim's body until the authorities arrived.

I asked to see Jim and, after verifying there was nothing more that
could be done, agreed to let Mitchell fly me to the Tucumcari hospital,
about 60 mi. to the south.

I have vivid memories of that helicopter flight, as well. I didn't know
much about rotorcraft, but I knew a lot about "red lines," and Mitchell
kept the airspeed at or above red line all the way. The little
helicopter vibrated and shook a lot more than I thought it should have.
I tried to reassure the cowboy-pilot I was feeling OK; there was no need
to rush. But since he'd notified the hospital staff that we were
inbound, he insisted we get there as soon as possible. I couldn't help
but think how ironic it would be to have survived one disaster only to
be done in by the helicopter that had come to my rescue.

However, we made it to the hospital safely--and quickly. Soon, I was
able to contact Lockheed's flight test office at Edwards. The test team
there had been notified initially about the loss of radio and radar
contact, then told the aircraft had been lost. They also knew what our
flight conditions had been at the time, and assumed no one could have
survived. I briefly explained what had happened, describing in fairly
accurate detail the flight conditions prior to breakup.

The next day, our flight profile was duplicated on the SR-71 flight
simulator at Beale AFB, Calif. The outcome was identical. Steps were
immediately taken to prevent a recurrence of our accident. Testing at a
CG aft of normal limits was discontinued, and trim-drag issues were
subsequently resolved via aerodynamic means. The inlet control system
was continuously improved and, with subsequent development of the
Digital Automatic Flight and Inlet Control System, inlet unstarts became
rare.

Investigation of our accident revealed that the nose section of the
aircraft had broken off aft of the rear cockpit and crashed about 10 mi.
from the main wreckage. Parts were scattered over an area approximately
15 mi. long and 10 mi. wide. Extremely high air loads and g-forces, both
positive and negative, had literally ripped Jim and me from the
airplane. Unbelievably good luck is the only explanation for my escaping
relatively unscathed from that disintegrating aircraft.

Two weeks after the accident, I was back in an SR-71, flying the first
sortie on a brand-new bird at Lockheed's Palmdale, Calif., assembly and
test facility. It was my first flight since the accident, so a flight
test engineer in the back seat was probably a little apprehensive about
my state of mind and confidence. As we roared down the runway and lifted
off, I heard an anxious voice over the intercom.

"Bill! Bill! Are you there?"

"Yeah, George. What's the matter?"

"Thank God! I thought you might have left." The rear cockpit of the
SR-71 has no forward visibility--only a small window on each side--and
George couldn't see me. A big red light on the master-warning panel in
the rear cockpit had illuminated just as we rotated, stating, "Pilot
Ejected." Fortunately, the cause was a misadjusted microswitch, not my
departure.

Bill Weaver flight tested all models of the Mach-2 F-104 Starfighter and
the entire family of Mach 3+ Blackbirds--the A-12, YF-12 and SR-71. He
subsequently was assigned to Lockheed's L-1011 project as an engineering
test pilot, became the company's chief pilot and retired as Division
Manager of Commercial Flying Operations. He still flies Orbital Sciences
Corp.'s L-1011, which has been modified to carry a Pegasus
satellite-launch vehicle (AW&ST Aug. 25, 2003, p. 56). An FAA Designated
Engineering Representative Flight Test Pilot, he's also involved in
various aircraft-modification projects, conducting certification flight
tests.