Originally posted by Debonair
Thanks, thats what I'd read at the Jordan Publishing web site
Well, that's my site...
I also wrote about this briefly in Flight Journal Magazine a few years ago, as part of a piece on the XF-90.
Rolland "Bee" Beaumont was asked about his experience flying the XP-86. He replied:
"Then I went over to the other side of North America and there was this gleaming swept wing fighter, the first time I had seen an aircraft with swept back wings other than a brief glimpse of a ME262 in Germany, and that's what I was going to fly. I had a session with the test pilot George Welsh who was a marvellous man - I got on with him at once, we spoke the same language. He told me that this was a particularly critical time to come and fly it because Chuck Yeager had been more or less credited with being the first man to fly at the speed of sound with the Bell XS-1, but this was on the strict instructions of the Pentagon, since this was a government sponsored programme.
North American had been ordered by the Pentagon not to announce the fact that they had flown the Sabre at the same time as the XS-1 and probably even a few days earlier - that had been suppressed because the XS-1 had to be seen to be the first one to achieve the speed of sound and with a USAF test pilot, Chuck Yeager. So I said this was jolly interesting and he said "Well, it's more interesting than that, because since all that happened the USAF has been saying they want to fly it too."
About a month before I got there an American test pilot had reached Mach 1 in the Sabre and now it was my turn. I had a very good briefing; I knew exactly what to do and how to do it. I wasn't told that I could fly at Mach 1, but I thought this is a chance in a million, I'll do it. It was a very straight forward aeroplane, wonderful to fly and I saw Mach 1 on the Mach meter.
In the debriefing afterwards there was a certain amount of confusion and George Welsh, the project pilot, said "This is going to cause a ruckus when it gets around!" I said I hope it wouldn't cause embarrassment, and he said "No problem, we've handled these things before. Undoubtedly, you're the third chap to have done it in this aircraft; I don't think the authorities gave us the authority to tell you to do it." So I said "Well, you didn't tell me to do it did you? You just told me it had done that and I didn't see any reason why I shouldn't have a go", and that's the way we left it.
Then years went by and I was fascinated to see earlier this year the book called 'Aces Wild' by Al Blackburn, who was a colleague test pilot for the North American company working with George Welsh who wrote his memoirs last year. He's recounted all of this and made it absolutely clear that in his view, the P-86 achieved Mach 1 a few days before Chuck Yeager did it in the XS-1 and this Brit Beamont did it May 1948, so an interesting story."
So, Beaumont was the third pilot to exceed Mach 1 in the XP-86 right in the middle of USAF cover-up of Welch's first two flights.
You can read Beaumont's interview on the web,
here. My regards,
Widewing
