Science: Supersonic Bail-Out

The hair-raising story of the first pilot to bail out of an airplane at supersonic speed—and live to tell at least part of the tale—was released this week by North American Aviation, Inc.

On Feb. 26, Test Pilot George Smith, 31, left his bachelor apartment in Manhattan Beach, Calif, to buy groceries. It was a Saturday, and he was not supposed to be working, but he stopped at the North American plant to turn in some test-flight reports. Just as Smith headed toward his battered Mercury to go home, Dispatcher Bob Gallahue asked him to flight-test a new F-100A jet fighter so that it could be delivered to the Air Force. Pilot Smith put on his flying gear, got into the cockpit, checked instruments and controls. He noticed that the fore-and-aft stick movement, which raises or lowers the nose of the aircraft in flight, was slightly stiff, but he thought nothing of it at the time.

Nose-Heavy. Taking off with his afterburner bellowing full blast, Pilot Smith shot out over the Pacific and pointed his plane upward to test its rate of climb. He broke through cloud cover at 8,000 ft. At 35,000 ft. he approached the speed of sound, still climbing, and felt his ship get slightly nose-heavy. He tried to correct it but could not. Something had gone wrong with the plane.

At 37,000 ft. the airplane nosed over. Smith fought his stick, trying to pull it back and get the nose up again. He braced his feet against the rudder pedals and pulled with all the strength of his 6-ft.-1-in., 220-lb. body. The stick would not budge, and the airplane’s path steepened into a dive. Smith called the airport tower over his radio: “Lost hydraulic pressure. Controls frozen. Going straight in.” By then his dive angle was almost vertical. A pilot in an F-100 saw him head toward the cloud deck. “Bail out!” he begged by radio. “Bail out, George!”

Smith realized without prompting that he was in deadly trouble. He was diving much faster than the speed of sound. He knew that if he bailed out, the hard-fingered wind might rip him to shreds. Smith killed his engine and put on his speed brakes. The hiss of the wind filled the cockpit. His sleek aircraft was losing altitude faster than it was losing speed.

When he ripped through the cloud cover at 8,000 ft., Smith realized that he had two alternatives, neither of them good. “I knew that I had no chance at all by bailing out,” he says, “but I preferred this to getting washed away by sand on the bottom of the ocean.”

Clap of Sound. As soon as he made his decision, he blew off the canopy—and an enormous sound, like the clap of a big gun, struck into the cockpit. It may have been this sound that has frozen many a pilot who has jettisoned his canopy and then ridden down to death. Perhaps it was a shock wave; no one is sure. But it frightened Pilot Smith as he had never been frightened. Terrified, he crouched forward (the wrong position for ejection). He does not even remember pressing the trigger that shot him out of the aircraft. The last thing he recalls is a glimpse of the machmeter, which read Mach 1.05. This is 777 m.p.h. at his altitude of 6,500 ft.

Smith remembers no more, but engineering analysis can describe roughly what happened. The wind hit his body with a force of 8,000 Ibs., and he felt deceleration of 40 gs, so that his organs weighed 40 times normal. His arms and legs must have flailed like propeller blades. His helmet, shoes, socks, gloves, wristwatch and ring were stripped off. His seat blew away automatically; his parachute opened and his unconscious, battered body drifted down toward the sea half a mile offshore. Air blast had inflated his stomach and lungs so that his body floated when it hit the water.

“What Airplane?” On the sea, luck awaited him. A fishing boat commanded by Art Berkell, a former Navy rescue specialist, was within 100 yards, and a fleet of Coast Guard auxiliary craft was maneuvering near by. Berkell started toward Pilot Smith even before he hit the water, and had him out in 50 seconds. He was semiconscious, partly delirious. “Anyone else in the airplane?” asked Berkell. “What airplane?” replied Smith.

Coast Guard boats closed in, and Smith was transferred to one of them. Radios crackled, and sirens screamed onshore. An ambulance was waiting at Balboa, and when he was riding toward Hoag Memorial Hospital, Smith heard a siren and wanted to know what was up.

He was deep in shock, with hardly any blood pressure. Plasma and whole blood were pumped into him. The skin of his nose was torn; his eyes were swollen shut; his face was almost black. His shoulders and thighs were covered with bruises; a hemorrhage in his left eye poured blood continuously. His heart, kidneys, liver and stomach had been damaged by internal air pressure or the terrible g forces. He sank into unconsciousness, and, while he lay dully on his bed, Air Force and Navy flight surgeons tramped through his room. At one time 18 specialists were crowding around him. In all, more than 100 physicians inspected the only living man who had bailed out of an airplane at more than the speed of sound.

Childish Letters. On the sixth day, Smith regained consciousness. He could see nothing, but he thought he heard laughing voices. The voices cleared into words. Thirty ten-year-old children in Aliso Elementary School had heard the thundering shock wave of his dive to the sea. Their teacher, Mrs. Pearl Phillipson, suggested that they write to him, urging him to get well. It was these childish letters, read aloud by a nurse, that he heard when he first awoke. Then, like shapes looming through fog, details of his flight came out of his memory.

While Airman Smith was still unconscious, Navy salvage crews began to search and drag for his airplane. No one remembered exactly where it hit, but one of the divers had happened to take a picture of an oil slick off South Laguna. By triangulation the point of impact was found, and after 381 dives, most of the airplane was fished up and collected in 44 barrels. “It looked,” said a North American man, “like enlarged cornflakes.”

Medical reports on the Smith case weigh 4½ Ibs. Engineering reports on the case of Smith’s airplane weigh 12 Ibs. The experts do not maintain that bailing out at more than the speed of sound is a safe procedure, but they are glad that at least one man has done it and lived. Now a pilot whose airplane heads for the deck in a screaming supersonic dive will know that he has a chance of survival.

Already new bail-out equipment is being devised on the basis of Smith’s experience. A better parachute and helmet are called for, and better restraining mechanism for head, shoulders and limbs.

Smith is now in fairly good shape, considering. He stayed in the hospital six months, with a brief and ill-advised discharge ending in return for an internal operation. He has passed a physical examination that has restored his commercial flying certificate. He is not cleared to fly jets again, but he hopes to. And he hopes to be back at work soon in his old job as test pilot.