Free Neil Armstrong: A Life of Flight by Jay Barbree Page A

its B-52 drop aircraft. (NASA)
     
    FIVE
    PASADENA OVERSHOOT
    Dressed in his high-flight pressure suit Neil Armstrong was cocooned in his X-15’s cockpit. The hatch had closed down on him to the point of being oppressive. His windshield wrapped his head and shoulders with two almond eyes that were set in a covering of Inconel X, a black-painted nickel alloy to dissipate heat. He felt as if he was wearing the cockpit instead of sitting in it. It was so snug it was difficult to see inside or out as he and his rocket plane hung beneath a drop-and-launch B-52. They were cruising at 45,000 feet—about 8.5 miles above the desert below. It was April 20, 1962, and as he approached his drop, Neil left the puffy white clouds behind, entering a CAVU (Ceilings and Visibility Unlimited) day over the dome of the world—what pilots called the high desert test-flight area.
    The previous year Joe Walker, chief pilot for Neil’s group, flew above 60 miles earning him the first set of X-15 astronaut wings. A reporter asked Walker, “How does it feel to be the best test pilot in the world?”
    “Hey, I just flew a little higher than the rest,” Joe Walker answered. “You looking for who might be best, keep your eye on young Neil Armstrong.”
    Neil had flown the X-15 six times. This was number seven, and like his seventh combat mission over Korea where he had to eject, this number seven would prove equally unlucky.
    His flight plan called for him to take his X-15 to the edge of space, about 39 miles up, and test a new control system. They were now at that part of flight where things became tense—exciting—and if Neil Armstrong didn’t know this feeling well, who in the hell did?

    A clean and quick drop. (NASA)
    The ten-seconds-to-launch light came on.
    “Five, four, three, two, one, launch, ” and the B-52 dropped Neil’s rocket plane, abruptly and with precision.
    This X-15, the third in the fleet, had the newest and biggest rocket engine—the XLR-99, and Neil threw the switch. He felt it! The new engine’s kick slammed him back in his seat.
    At the family’s mountain cabin Janet had the binoculars out. She could see the wide, sweeping contrails left by the B-52. She held her breath, wondering if Karen Anne’s death would affect Neil’s flying skills.
    Janet was not the only one wondering.

    Neil and his X-15 are on their way. (NASA)
    The X-15 was not the easiest in the sky to fly. It was a nasty 51-foot-long black bullet with stubby wings. Its new, most powerful rocket was pushing it faster and faster from Earth. Neil’s muscles tensed to handle the building G-forces. He was terribly busy, keeping everything under control while watching for the tiniest deviations.
    He didn’t have time to notice blue sky turn black, but when his big rocket shut down he knew he was moving—about 3,500 miles per hour, 1,500 miles per hour slower than the speed Alan Shepard had reached to rocket 112 miles into space. He would climb to less than 40 percent of that height. Now he had time to look out.

    Neil’s X-15 moves into black sky. (NASA)
    The X-15 moved steadily upward on the energy it got from the XLR-99 rocket. This energy would push him through most of the atmosphere to where he could only see black sky above an extremely bright Earth below.
    It was all breathtaking and dazzling and Neil could not believe the horizon’s bands of color—colors that began with the deep blackness of space on top, then purple to deep indigo before settling into rich blues and bright whites, capping his planet’s brown earth and blue waters. Neil was on his way still wondering how high is up as he left atmosphere behind and reached a place seen only by few, a place where air was so thin it could not reflect light.
    The higher he climbed the less pull of gravity and sense of motion. He was now flying through the upper reaches of the sky—silent and weightless—an experience known only by those few who dared to sail over the top of the world.
    “It