Originally posted by ChopSaw
WideWing,
I’ve read your post and the post you published online regarding who was first to break the sound barrier. I’ve thought for a couple of days on how to respond. You’ve obviously put in a lot of work on this and I can appreciate that. It certainly seems you might be correct in believing Welch was the first to do it. That aside, Yeager remains the Official holder of the record and recognized as such by the world. If what you allege is true, I wish you the very best in getting this record straightened out, though I fear you have an uphill battle on your hands. I may have heroes, but the greatest among them is the concept of truth.
Who are you exactly? I’d like to read some of your articles in Flight Journal. Are you Jordan of Jordan Press?
Best regards,
ChopSaw
Well, I'm a realist... I do not see the USAF or NASA, for that matter, changing their tune unless one event happens. That event would be Chuck Yeager admitting that Welch was first or just conceding that Welch might have been first. Will that occur? I doubt it very much. All anyone can do is educate the population as to what really happened.
I urge anyone with an interest in this topic to visit their library and get them to find a copy of Al Blackburn's Aces Wild: The Race for Mach 1. ISBN 0-8420-2732-2, published by Scholarly Resources Inc. Al's book covers much more than a 3,000 word article can come close to. It's available from Amazon and most online booksellers.
I checked with Flight Journal and few old issues are available. However, at least one has been re-printed on findarticles.com. This article is focused on the Lockheed XP-90/XF-90, but does mention Welch and the XP-86. You can find it
here. I wrote the article, Bodie supplied the photos and editing.
I own Jordan Publishing, but this is simply a vehicle for obtaining a serial copyright for my own web work.
One last item. A reviewer of Blackie's book, named Pierre Redmond, wrote this:
"My father-in-law is Larry Greene. He appears several times in Blackburn's book. Larry was North American's chief aerodynamicist, in charge of the F-86's groundbreaking design, particularly the "swept wing" design. He was with North American for about 20 years, rising to Vice President before leaving shortly after the Rockwell merger.
I don't know much about aviation, but I do know this man. I have known him since 1981, and I believe him. Larry says the F-86 with Welch in the cockpit went Mach 1 before Yeager and the X-1. He may not have been in the cockpit, but when I recently read the paragraph to him where Welch has the conversation with him and "Stormy", where Welch asks about putting the Sabre into a dive from 35,000 feet, Larry piped up "I told him to do it!".
Not being an aviation buff myself, in the past I would sometimes confuse Larry's work with the Bell X-1 project. After all, he had worked on early supersonic aircraft, and the X-1 was all I had learned about in school and at the movies. My wife and I actually rented "The Right Stuff" once when he and Terry were visiting. As we watched the movie, he grew noticeably grumpy and irritated at it. I didn't understand why. I thought he would like to see the events surrounding his career glamorized on screen.
This was years ago, and when I pressed him a bit, he muttered something like "we were ready to go supersonic before them, but the politicians held us back". I didn't get the "we vs. them" reference and I wrote it off to old age grumpiness. Later, on other occassions, he would make similar comments if the subject ever came up, sometimes venturing a little further and basically saying "we beat them". I never "got it" until I read Blackburn's book. Unfortunately, Larry is now of an advanced age which makes detailed discussion impossible.
Larry is from a generation that knew how to keep a secret. Even 20 or 30 years after the events, I feel he was honoring his word not to discuss the Sabre's early test flights. In retrospect I can see it bubbling up. I can now understand his irritation at all the glory accorded Yeager and the Bell X-1 team. Finally, now, in his waning years, when presented with the words in publication, he is willing to acknowledge the truth. He actually seems relieved to be able to acknowledge it.
The publication of Blackburn's book may cause aviation historians to long debate who went Mach 1 first, and others may ask "who cares". I am neither a historian nor an aviation expert, but I consider myself a pretty good judge of character. If Larry Greene tells me the Sabre went Mach 1 on those early test flights, then that's good enough for me and it's what my boys will learn."
My regards,
Widewing
