Word: bridgeman
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...crew topped off the rocket plane's tanks with 45 gallons of "lox" (liquid oxygen), fuming and fiercely cold. That much lox had evaporated since the tanks were filled on the ground, and this climax flight would need every gallon. At 25,000 ft., three men lowered Bridgeman, bulky with his high-altitude gear, into the Skyrocket's cockpit...
Pinpoint Breakaway. At 35,000 ft. Pilot Jensen chanted the breakaway signal: 5-4-3-2-1. Then, as the Skyrocket dropped, the B-29 banked sharply to the left. Bridgeman was on his own. With bare hands (no gloves for this critical job), he flicked four switches in quick sequence. Each switch fired a rocket chamber. They made a curious sound-a "bloof" and a "schplunk," as Bridgeman describes it. A trail of dense white vapor streamed out from the tail. Ten seconds after the drop, Bridgeman was speeding faster than sound. He did not even feel this "passing...
...Bridgeman pulled back on the stick until the fuselage angle pointed up about 50°. He watched his altimeter, accelerometer, air-speed indicator, his cabin temperature and rocket pressure gauges. His world had contracted to the artificial world of the instruments. He was climbing at more than 1,000 m.p.h., and burning fuel at the rate of a ton a minute...
Highest & Fastest. This made Pilot Bridgeman the highest human. As the Skyrocket rounded the turn at the top of its flight, he was probably the fastest too; his speed exceeded 1,000 m.p.h. by a wide margin. For a moment he had time to look around. The sky was dark blue, "but not as dark as advertised. It wasn't purple, just a nice heavy blue. The land seemed blurred, and although I believe I saw the curvature of the earth, I cannot be sure that...
Then came the long plunge down. At first the little white airplane fell like a meteor. Gradually, as the air grew firmer, Bridgeman flattened her out, to 40¬, then 30°. The enormous speed died gradually. As he went back through the speed of sound he felt a jolt, but it did not amount to much...