WORLD’S FASTEST PLANE

Press, Volume XCII, Issue 27733, 10 August 1955, Page 13

WORLD’S FASTEST PLANE

Bell XIA Explodes Over Desert LOS ANGELES. August* 9. The world's fastest plane exploded yesterday in the bomb bay of its “mother ship” six miles over the Mojave Desc.t. The pilot calmly prevented a disaster, although he tell unconscious from lack of oxygen a few minutes later. The small experimental rocket plane, which has flown at 1650 miles an hour, was about to be launched from a B-29 when it exploded. The pilot, Joseph A. Walker, aged 34. cut the switch on his engine to prevent any further explosion, and then depressurised his cabin. Death can occur in a few minutes without oxygen at high altitudes, and as Walker crawled from the small craft after disconnecting his oxygen sup^ 1 ” he fell unconscious. He was helped from the cockpit. The 1.000.000-dollar Bell XIA then had to be jettisoned to save the lives of its pilot and the seven-man crew of the B-29. The men. all civilians, conducting flight tests for the National Advisory Commission for Aeronautics, tried to save the rocket ship, but the explosion had made it incapable of flight and they feared another blast, as it was impossible to jettison the rocket’s fuel —highly-explosive hydrogen peroxide. Pieces torn from the small craft by the blast struck a following “chaser” plane, an F-86 jet. “like shrapnel,” and cracked its windshield. Major Arthur Murray, who set a world altitude mark of 90.000 feet in the rocket plane, was flying the F-86. After the explosion he flew close to the rocket, found that all of the fuel had not been jettisoned, and warned the B-29.

The explosion occurred at 30.000 feet, but the rocket plane was jettisoned at a lower altitude.