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Shifty by chuck yeager12/31/2023 The thing would suck down 2,500 gallons of fuel in 90-seconds. The engine was delivered a year later than the planned date but the extra time was worth it. This was a huge development because it would later provide invaluable on machines like the lunar lander that was used to safety put men on the moon. Rather than just lighting a wick and hanging on, the pilot could actually throttle the engine while in flight. The XLR-99 was the first truly throttle-able rocket engine. The biggest secret to the success of the X-15 other than its impeccable aerodyamics was the sledgehammer engine that it used. They would double the speed marks to Mach 6. From that point development stopped for a time as the X-15 research planes were engineered and brought to bear. Three years later Mach 3 was achieved in a deadly flight of Captain Milburn G Apt. Six years after that Scott Crossfield went Mach 2. It was a 44-year evolution from the Wright Brothers to Chuck Yeager hitting Mach 1 in the Bell X-1 airplane. The X-15 rocket plane was a machine that did a LOT to advance the idea that we would actually be able to successfully build and reliably fly airplanes at speeds that people did not think possible even just a few years before.Ĭonsider this. There were times when the steps were plodding and incremental and there were other steps that were actually bounding leaps. I never tire of reading this.The most amazing part of the birth and success of the US Space Program was the evolution of the knowledge and engineering involved. I think that it is amazing how the “ media” chooses our “heroes” these days…Įlvis, Michael Jackson, Whitney Houston & the like. Please forward this email to everyone you know. Let’s give Shifty his own memorial service, online, in our own quiet way. No wall-to-wall, back-to-back 24x7 news coverage. Make an old man very happy.” His eyes were filling up as he said it.Īnd mine are brimming up now as I write this. Still some who remember what we did and who still care is enough to When Shifty cameįorward, I got up out of the seat and told him I wanted him to have Get him and said that I wanted to switch seats. I helped Shifty get onto the plane and then realized he was back inĬoach while I was in First Class. Was in my throat and I didn’t know what to say. Left, and those that are, lots of them can’t make the trip.” My heart “Yes… And it ’s real sad because, these days, so few of the guys are ![]() I asked Shifty if he was on his way back from France, and he said ” I was standing with a genuine war hero …Īnd then I realized that it was June, just after the anniversary of I told him “yes, I know exactly where Normandy is, and I know whatĭ-Day was.” At that point he said “I also made a second jump into Where Normandy is?” At this point my heart stopped. Jumps at Toccoa, and then jumped into Normandy … do you know Quietly and humbly, he said “Well, I guess I signed up in 1941 or so, and was in until sometime in 1945 …” at which point my heart skipped.Īt that point, again, very humbly, he said “I made the 5 training I thanked him for his service, then asked him when he served,Īnd how many jumps he made. ![]() He said quietly that he had been in theġ01st. Making conversation, I asked him if he’d been in the 101st Airborne I offered to help, assured him that he wasĪt the right gate, and noticed the “Screaming Eagle,” the symbol of I met Shifty in the Philadelphia airport several years ago. His character appears in all 10Įpisodes, and Shifty himself is interviewed in several of them. If you’ve seen Band of Brothers on HBO or the Shifty volunteered for the airborne in WWII and served with EasyĬompany of the 506th Parachute Infantry Regiment, part of the 101stĪirborne Infantry.
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