Science: Bill & the Little Beast

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Grinning quickly at the flight surgeon, Bridgeman walked to the X3, stooped, and squatted directly under it. He eased himself into a seat that hung on an elevator below the plane's belly. Mechanics bolted him into the seat, tightened broad straps across his chest, shoulders and knees. An aerodynamicist checked their job with meticulous care. Then Bridgeman turned a knob, and the elevator lifted him slowly into the X3.

Let Her Go. While Bridgeman checked his instruments, people and cars began to pull back to a prudent distance—and with good reason. When the X-3's afterburners are roaring full, they send out cones of destructive sound that can pop eardrums. Soon Bridgeman started both jets, and they drowned out the lesser sound of Yeager's F-86. When he cut in the afterburners a few moments later, an awesome roar rolled across the lake. The X-3 came to violent life. It bucked and shook and howled like a trapped hyena. This was the signal for Yeager to take off. His Sabre sped down the runway.

Inside the bucking X3, Bridgeman pressed hard on the brakes while the plane struggled and shook. "Boy, she wanted to go," he recalls. "She wanted to go something bad. I was all set, so I let her go." Over the interplane radio he called to Yeager in the air ahead of him: "When you gotta go, you gotta go. Let's go, Chuck!"

He released the brakes, and the X-3 began to roll, its tailpipes' blast clawing great chunks out of the lake's hard surface. After a long run it was still on the ground, but the stunted wings were beginning to grip the air. The wheel struts grew longer as the aircraft lightened on its feet. The Sensible Thing. "Strut extended," Yeager said encouragingly over the interplane radio. His Sabre dipped low to watch the critical takeoff. The X-3's wheels lifted clear of the ground at last.

"Clean, very clean," said Yeager, and Bill Bridgeman got up his landing gear. The X-3 was airborne on its tiny wings, and one of the engineers on the ground began to weep. "It seemed the sensible thing to do," one of his companions explained. "More than blueprints went into that airplane."

Soon the X-3 and Yeager's Sabre were only a couple of thundering dots above the desert horizon. But to the jittery listeners gathered around a trailer near the hangar, they seemed eerily close. The trailer's roof bristled with antennae, and over them streamed a flood of news from the distant airplanes. Out of a loudspeaker, mixed with cracklings, hums and silences, came the voices of Bridgeman and Yeager.

Bridgeman: "Where are you, Chuck? Stay off my engine." (Stick just off to one side and watch me.)

Yeager: "Right on your tail, son. Just looking up your tailpipe."