Word: goodlin
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...Love. Test Pilot Yeager knew all this when he prepared to fly the Air Force's odd little Bell speedster. He took over the X-1 from a civilian test pilot, Chalmers ("Slick") Goodlin, who had flown the ominous little ship at Mach .8 (eight-tenths of the speed of sound). Goodlin was offered a fat reward (a rumored $150,000) for flying it at full speed, but he did not like the terms. Another civilian pilot had a try at the X-1 and hastily bowed out. Then the Air Force took charge and gave...
...minutes handsome, 23-year-old test pilot Chalmers ("Slick") Goodlin felt the plane out, reporting steadily by radio to observers on the ground. Once, he shot up to 550 miles an hour, prudently throttled back to avoid crashing into the danger zone of compressibility near the speed of sound (763 m.p.h. at sea level). Then, with his fuel gone (at top speed the XS-1 would gulp up its four tons of ethyl alcohol and liquid oxygen in 2½ minutes), he glided down...
Easy Does It. Many a citizen, geared to the automotive age, found this enthusiasm a little unreal. Slick Goodlin seemed oddly like a man begging to be shot out of a cannon. But Slick didn't think so. Like Columbus, Magellan and the Wright brothers, he was just doing what came naturally. He had been flying almost continuously for seven years, first by dint of washing planes at an airport near his grandfather's Greensburg, Pa. farm, then as a flying officer in the R.C.A.F., then as an ensign in the U.S. Navy and finally as a member...
...daredevil or exhibitionist, Slick Goodlin took over the job of testing the XS-1 on the understanding that he would fly it no faster than 82% of the speed of sound unless he was convinced that it would safely go faster. Approximately 20 more preliminary flights are planned between now and next summer; Goodlin has the privilege of recommending that the XS-1 be flown pilotless by radio control in its supersonic test. But last week, after months of devouring engineering and wind-tunnel reports, and after handling the plane under power, he said: "I know what this airplane...
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