Flight Log

Mach 2. Man has now flown twice as fast as sound. The feat was performed by Scott Crossfield, 32, pilot for the NACA (National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics), which has taken over the famed Douglas Skyrocket, first flown by Test Pilot Bill Bridgeman in 1947. Last week the Skyrocket, with Crossfield at the controls, was dropped from a B-29 at 32,000 ft. above Muroc Dry Lake. After following a careful flight plan (climbing so as to reach high altitude with a minimum expenditure of fuel), Crossfield nosed over and flew practically level under full power. The machmeter, which measures speed in multiples of the speed of sound, went slightly above Mach 2. With the air temperature down to about 67DEG below zero F., this meant that Crossfield was flying at 1,327 m.p.h. (the speed of sound at that temperature is 660 m.p.h.). Bridgeman's best speed in the Skyrocket: 1,238 m.p.h.

The Skyrocket's fuel (three tons) burned out at the end of the spurt. Scotty spiraled to the dry lake and made a perfect landing at 150 m.p.h. Asked how it felt to be flying twice as fast as sound, he said: "I had the flu and an awful headache, and about all I really wanted to do was to get this over and get down."

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X-3 Unveiled. The Air Force at long last released pictures and a sketchy description of the Douglas X-3 research plane first taken into the air by Test Pilot Bridgeman, who considered it a "nasty little beast" (TIME, April 27). Actually, the X-3 is heavier and slightly longer (66 ft. 9 in.) than a DC-3 transport, but its wing span is only 22 ft. 8 in., less than the span of a DC-3's tail. The wings themselves are short even for this penguinlike spread, because the fuselage has to be thick enough to hold the two jet engines.

The plane was built as a flying laboratory, loaded with 1,200 Ibs. of instruments, to explore sustained flying at very high speeds. This ruled out rocket motors, which use so much fuel that they can deliver full power for only a few minutes. Whether the X-3's turbo jets proved powerful enough to drive it at the speed for which it was designed is still an official secret. Bridgeman, Douglas, the Air Force and the Navy have now finished with the X3, are turning it over to the NACA for further research work without talking about its performance.

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