Word: muroc
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: all
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
Just before noon one day last week a B-29 labored into the skies over California's Muroc Army Air Base. To its duralumin bosom it clutched a precious burden: the Bell Aircraft Corp.'s rocket-propelled XS-1, a plane designed to fly more than 1,000 miles an hour. At 27,000 feet, the stub-winged, orange-colored XS-1 was released to begin its first power flight. It dropped heavily-300, 600, 800 feet. Then the rocket engine in its tail belched flame and it spurted ahead...
Though he had missed death by inches several times (once the XS-1's cabin pressure system went wrong, subjected him to skull-cracking pressure), he showed no nervousness or apprehension over his job. Between flights at Muroc he lounged comfortably in an adobe cottage at nearby Willow Springs. He swam, read, listened to Rachmaninoff and Chopin recordings, dreamily contemplated his fondest ambition: exploring the Amazon with a helicopter. From time to time he climbed into a conventional P-51, flew to Los Angeles to look in on his girl friends...
Until recently most airmen believed that the problem of supersonic flight was tough, but eventually crackable. Last week they were muttering doubts. U.S. Army Air Forces at Muroc Dry Lake, Calif, had postponed their scheduled attempt to break the British-held speed record (616 m.p.h.). The British themselves were poking into hedgerows, looking for further bits of Geoffrey de Havilland's Swallow, which mysteriously came apart in mid-air (TIME, Oct. 7). Unofficial reports indicated that the Swallow had reached 650 m.p.h. in level flight before it disintegrated. This figure, many airmen now feared, might be close...
...ready. She was down the runway and off. Eddie Allen tucked up her legs and she whisked away from the field, slim, slick, slightly bent in her fore-and-aft line so that her nose drooped like an ant-eater's. An hour later she had landed at Muroc Lake and the Army Air Forces...
Chunky Captain Elliott Roosevelt of the Air Corps was in Texas when war came, studying navigation at Kelly Field. Last week he was ordered to join a reconnaissance squadron at Muroc, Calif...