Word: skyrocketing
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Only a month ago, Douglas Aircraft's tiny, rocket-powered Navy Skyrocket broke all altitude records by hurtling higher than 77,000 ft. at a speed greater than 1,000 m.p.h. (TIME, Sept. 10). But things never stand still in an aircraft factory. Next week Donald Douglas will trundle out a spectacular successor to the spectacular Skyrocket...
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...
...Skyrocket passed altitude records: the top flight of jet planes (59,446 ft.); his own earlier records (secret). Finally he passed the highest of all: the record 72,395-ft. balloon flight of balloonists Captain Orvil A. Anderson* and the late Captain Albert W. Stevens in 1935. Just how high he got, the Navy would not say. Aviation gossip believes that the Skyrocket reached an altitude of more than 77,000 ft. (nearly 15 miles...
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...
When Bridgeman landed on Muroc Dry Lake (at 180 m.p.h.), his work with the Skyrocket was done. She had passed her last test and would now be turned over to the Navy and National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics for research. He is sorry that he must leave her. "I believe she can go much higher," he said affectionately, "and fly much faster...