MACH-2 ORGASMS: The most fun you can have with your clothes on...

I just returned from church.

“Church?!” you say incredulously. “CHURCH!?” knowing (or at least suspecting) that I am about as much of a non-believer in conventional religious deities as anyone can possibly be.

Well, let me qualify that a bit, lest you start thinking I am a good little Christian or something (God forbid, he thought with just a touch of laconic irony).

While I do not believe in gods or goddesses (don’t tell Pele, or Hina, or any of the pantheon of Hawaiian deities I favor when I am on the islands), I do go to church occasionally. By ‘church’, I am referring to certain sacred temples of the righteous brotherhood of flight. In this specific instance, I am referring to Edwards Air Force Flight Test Center, and even more specifically to NASA’s Dryden Flight Research Center that is located on that sprawling desert base. For the past several days I have been down at Edwards, taking care of some life support concerns with the NASA guys. Just being there, out on that broad high desert dry lake (3000 feet altitude), where almost all of America’s modern flight test developments have taken place, is for me like standing on an ancient Hawaiian heiau (spiritual site, or ‘temple’) and communing with the mana (spirit) of powers beyond our mortal imaginings.

Coming up two months from now (14 Oct 07) is the 61st anniversary of Brig. Gen. Chuck Yeager’s famous Mach-busting first flight through the so-called ‘sound barrier’ on the 14th of October, 1947. It’s hard enough to believe that humankind put a man on the moon, an airless body orbiting around Earth lying some 240,000 miles distant from us, only 66 years after the first (officially recorded) powered and heavier than air flight by the Wright Brothers, but it is equally bemusing to reflect on the fact that in 1957, only 10 short years after Mach-1 was reached, regular production jet aircraft were already breaking Mach-2 (twice the speed of sound). This distinctive honor fell to Lockheed’s amazing ‘missile with a man in it’, the arrow-like Lockheed F-104 Starfighter, with its maximum speed of Mach-2+. I am fortunate enough to have a personal relationship (somewhat like Japanese writer Yukio Mishima had) with one of these spectacularly beautiful, stubby-winged, ‘faster-than-stink’ 50s era aircraft, but more about that later.

“Mach”, or the speed necessary to attain for supersonic flight (the rate at which sound is transmitted in air), is generally a function based on the interactivity air density, pressure, and temperature, since air—like all fluidic mediums—imposes ‘drag’ on a body moving through it. The same basic physics of air resistance apply to bicycles (I use that analog due to my being a fanatical ‘wheelman’) as they do to spacecraft or jet aircraft, since it is principally air resistance that determines how fast we may (or may not) travel (assuming one has a sufficiently powerful engine, capable of propelling the craft). Air density, which is the basic source of resistance to an object traveling through air, is in turn affected by temperature, and as altitude increases, the temperature of ambient air decreases according to a predictable formula. Granted this is a gross oversimplification of the vastly complex field of atmospheric aerodynamics, a modicum of understanding of which all pilots and aviators must have, but for my purposes here a basic understanding suffices to make my point. [Bicyclists, who are usually riding close to sea level, usually don’t have to worry about the effects of altitude, air density, and temperature, of course, although elevation gradients—and to some extent air resistance--are mildly problematic within that two-wheeled, Earthbound context].

The speed of sound (all other things being equal except altitude) varies from about 661.7 miles per hour at sea level (assuming standard temperature and pressure conditions for the given altitude) to about 576.6 mph at 35,000 feet. Very powerful aircraft capable of multi-Mach performance (like the Lockheed SR-71 ‘Blackbird’, now sadly retired) may only do so high up in the Earth’s atmosphere, where the air is cold and thin. Down at sea level the fastest speeds obtainable by most aircraft are just over Mach-1. Amusingly, and for this reason, fewer things are funnier than to hear some aviation bullshitter (usually a young aviation poser trying to impress others), who wants everyone to think he is steaming Sierra Hotel (aviator parlance for ‘shit hot’) material, talk about traveling at Mach-2 down low and on the deck (not!).

At any rate, 60 years ago to the day, a 22-year-old Captain Chuck Yeager finally poked a hole in the sky at Mach-1 in his bright orange Bell XS-1 rocket research aircraft for the record books. Yeager was not the first man to do so, however, but only the first one to do so under carefully measured and documented scrutiny (and live to tell about it), for a number of other, earlier aviators had flown their aircraft through the ‘sound barrier’ only to have them break up and disintegrate. Curiously enough, just before Yeager won the ‘official’ title of ‘first mach-buster’ on 14 Oct 47, North American Aviation test pilot George Welch very probably broke Mach-1 in two test flights he was making in the new prototype XP-86 Sabre. The first such ‘unofficial’ Mach-busting flight occurred on 1 October 1947, during some test dives Welch was making in the new swept-wing Sabre. Welch reported an extremely unusual turbulence effect as he neared Mach-1 in his dives and it is almost certain that he passed into that trans-sonic region briefly on that day, since several characteristic sonic booms were heard by those on the desert below. Two weeks later, while testing the same XP-86 prototype, Welch again very briefly passed through the sound barrier during a test dive and this time only scant minutes before Yeager officially took the ‘official’ honors as ‘first Mach Buster’ in the Bell XS-1!

At the time, the US Air Force wanted to have a military pilot end up on the record as the first man to break Mach for prestige purposes, hence Secretary of the Air Force Stewart Symington acted to suppress any unofficial recognition of Welch’s feat. Additionally, since Yeager’s flight was classified information at the time, all references to any Mach-busting efforts of any sort were officially censured (the fact leaked out prematurely to the press shortly thereafter, however).

Yeager went on to lead a life of notoriety, based upon his official recognition as the first man to break the sound barrier and also on his reputation for being a flinty, eagle-eyed flight test pilot. These qualities eventually prompted author Tom Wolff to write his best-selling novel, The Right Stuff, thus immortalizing Yeager for posterity as the iconic epitome of the fearless aviation test pilot. When a popular movie followed the novel, Yeager’s place in the annals of aviation history was secured and as he transitioned from mortal man to one of the mythical superheros of flight, any possibility of unemotional, purely rational regard for his status instantly vanished into the mists forever.

Today, Yeager lives about 40 miles from me, in the rural central California foothill community known as Cedar Ridge. At the age of 82, Yeager is about as crusty and cantankerous as only an ex-West Virginian super-human legend of flight can be. Having been launched into the aviation lime-light by his 1947 flight into the records books to remain a celebrity, willing or not, Yeager has had his share of personal ups and downs. When his first wife Glennis was first diagnosed with cancer, Yeager, lacking any health insurance coverage except those provided by his US Air Force retirement benefits, was forced to start shilling various commercial products, using his status as the ‘Mr. Right Stuff’ test pilot. Thus, we became used to seeing Yeager wearing Rolex watches in magazine ads and seeing him hawk Delco automobile batteries (among other things) on television. Unfortunately, and despite his basic tendencies to wish to remain out of the public view, Yeager continued to suffer the indignancies of public familiarisation so as to be able to afford the extremely expensive cancer chemotherapy and radiation treatments required by Glennis Yeager. At the time not many people were aware of this and a great number of people felt Yeager was simply banking on his name and superstar status, just like any common public celebrity. In fact, he sacrificed any personal desires for privacy for the sake of his wife, to whom he was closely attached.

This was merely the tip of the iceberg for Yeager, however, since as the superhero myth grew, his name became bastardised the same way any celebrity’s name is through familiarization (the phrase ‘familiarity breeds contempt’ is one of the most under-regarded truths of human affairs, of course, and for a very good reason). In recent years Yeager’s adulation by the hoi poloi (virtually a commonly tradable commodity in terms of name recognition) had grown to such an extent that he had to start a foundation to handle his affairs. Having taken a second wife, much younger than himself in the interim (she’s 47), Yeager’s fortunes were vastly complicated by a highly contentious intra-family argument over his collective worth. Presently, Yeager has been sued by his daughter, who contends that his new wife is exerting ‘undue influence’ over the General with regard to the fact that upon his death his $1.5-million-dollar ranch and other assets will likely go to her, rather than to them. Yeager’s position is that his children are being unreasonable and the final result of all this remains to be determined. No matter how you look at it, however, it is sad that he has to suffer the indignity of a painful legal battle within his family over his inheritance, while he is still very much alive and well.

I ran into Yeager once (a number of years ago) at the Edwards AFB history office, while down at Edwards AFB doing some research, and I also see him occasionally at local air shows and aviation events near the Grass Valley area he lives in. Yeager struck me (originally and subsequently) as every bit the crusty, undiplomatic, and highly opinionated (I won’t say cantankerous, but the word certainly comes to mind as an apt descriptor of him in his advanced seniority) person he is reputed to be by those who know him moderately well. I can’t say I begrudge him those qualities entirely, however, since his high-profile public personae of some note isn’t exactly a thing he actively sought out for himself over the years. As with any celebrity’s fame, the commonised public awareness and over-the-top adulation comes at a very high personal cost, indeed. In this sense, Yeager is to be as much pitied for having achieved immortal aviation fame as he is to be admired for it (and ditto for ANY of today’s pop-culture celebrities and heroes in any other context).

While Yeager remains the official “Mr. Mach-buster’ of the aviation record books, his story almost pales in comparison to that of Air Force Major Joseph Kittinger, who quietly entered the aeronautical record book in 1960 by reaching an altitude of over 102,000 feet in a Mylar balloon-supported open gondola and then jumping out to free fall back to earth. Experiencing temperatures as low as –97 degrees F. and protected from them only by layers of clothing over a partial pressure suit, Kittinger on that flight became known as the first man to break the sound barrier without an airplane (i.e. with his pressure-suit clad body only)! During his 276 second freefall to breathable atmosphere (where he could open his 28-foot personal parachute), Kittinger reached a speed of approximately 640 mph, thus accomplishing a far greater and more unique personal achievement than any other man to that date. His record still remains to this day, despite recent attempts to break it by several individuals. [Note: Thanks to financial backing from 'Red Bull' caffeinated drinks, Kittinger's record has today been exceeded by an Austrian, Felix Baumgartner, who reached a speed of 834 mph in a free-fall parachute jump from 128,000+ feet in 2012.]

Kittinger, who ended a spectacular and notable military aviation career in the Air Force some years back, today remains active in aviation circles well into his advanced years. He is the opposite of Yeager in terms of personalities, preferring to remain a ‘quiet birdman’, rather than a high profile public personality, and for this reason his almost unbelievable 1960 accomplishment of having broke the Mach-1 barrier with his body, rather than while being surrounded by the protective confines of an aircraft, is often overlooked by or lost on today’s average person.

Just before I left for Edwards several days ago, I spent part of a day giving a much-needed bath to an airplane. Not just any airplane, I should add, but one of the hottest, sexiest, and most advanced (for its era) Sierra Hotel jet fighters the world has ever seen: a former NASA Lockheed F-104B Starfighter. It isn’t easy to ‘wash’ a military airplane as one would a favorite car, but I spent the morning carefully going over every square foot of that magnificent airplane by hand with a wash rag and it was job done willingly, due to my acute knowledge of what this aircraft represents in terms of advancing modern aeronautical knowledge and progress.

As the Aerospace Museum of California’s egress and life support historian, it’s one of my jobs to support historical documentation of aircraft ejection seat systems and aircrew life support systems. For those of you who are uncertain of what this represents in terms of an aviation connection, suffice it to say that I concern myself with technology intended to allow human beings to survive the hostile realm of high-altitude flight. I am also, however, the ‘keeper’ of one of our museum’s most interesting aircraft…a Lockheed F-104B, Mach-2+, silver needle with wings known to history as the Starfighter. The aircraft is known as “Howling Howland”, for the unique banshee-like wail that its Pratt & Whitney J-75 afterburner equipped axial-flow turbojet gave off at certain exhaust vane settings. A brief history of “Howland” appears in the following paragraphs.

NASA N819NA is a Lockheed F-104B ‘Starfighter’, formerly flown for two decades at the Edwards AFB sited Dryden Flight Research Center in the Mojave Desert. Although N819NA started out assigned to the US Air Force as a tandem-seat tail number 57-1303, shortly after it was turned off the Lockheed production line in 1957 it was assigned to the nation’s new civilian space agency, the National Aeronautics and Space Administration. The following is a snapshot of this fascinating aircraft’s career with that organisation before it was given to the Aerospace Museum of California by the US Air Force Museum, as part of our permanent aircraft collection.

N819NA’s story actually begins nearly 42 years before it was built, with the establishment of NASA’s predecessor NACA (National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics), in March of 1915. NACA’s mission at its inception was to “…supervise and direct the scientific study of the problems of flight with a view to their solution”, for it was quickly recognized when the first primitive aircraft took to the air that these new ‘flying machines’ would present complex challenges to our then rudimentary understanding of the principles of ‘manned heavier-than-air, powered flight’.

In 1944, Congress approved funds for an experimental research aircraft program to be administered and conducted jointly by NACA, the US Air Force, the US Navy, and private aviation industry. With all the advancements of Germany’s vast wartime aeronautics research programs suddenly being made available to the United States at the conclusion of WWII (much of which came to us through ‘Operation Paperclip’), many of the Germans’ radically advanced theories on aerodynamic engineering found their way into a new series of American research aircraft. It was not long thereafter that the first fully documented Mach 1 flight was made by the Bell Aircraft XS-1 (14 Oct 47), and a succession of advanced test aircraft followed that included the Bell X-1A & B, the Bell X-2, the Douglas X-3, the Northrop X-4, the Bell X-5, the Douglas D-558-II Skyrocket, and many others. The ultimate expression of this leap forward in aerodynamic research culminated in the famed North American X-15 rocket research aircraft that took flight testing into the fringes of space at speeds of up to Mach 6, from 1958 through 1969.

Meanwhile, in the late 50s and coincident with the establishment of an ‘International Geophysical Year’ (IGY) in 1957, efforts were made to establish an entirely new agency on NACA’s foundation, to be known as the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA). With a simple preamble ("An Act to provide for research into the problems of flight within and outside the Earth's atmosphere, and for other purposes."), the Congress and the President of the United States created the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) on October 1, 1958. NASA's birth was directly related to the pressures of national defense in this period, since immediately after World War II, the United States and the Soviet Union became engaged in what has become known as ‘The Cold War’, a worldwide contest between opposing ideologies and a monumental struggle to win the allegiances of ‘nonaligned’ nations. During this period, space exploration emerged as a major arena of this contest and shortly became known as ‘the space race’. When NASA first came into being, it quickly absorbed the earlier NACA mission and from 1958 onwards NASA’s presence at the Edwards Air Force Flight Test Facility (near Mojave, California) became fully established at the Dryden Flight Research Center (since renamed in honor of astronaut Neil Armstrong as the 'Armstrong Flight Research Center').

An important part of NASA’s flight test operations, various high speed aircraft (usually fighter type) were employed by that agency both as flight test “chase aircraft” (aircraft that would closely follow a research aircraft during its flight to both document the mission and provide direct support to the test aircraft’s pilot) and as actual component elements of various programs and projects dealing with high altitude aerospace research.

Three Lockheed F-104G model single seat Starfighters were initially delivered to NASA’s Dryden facility in the early 60s and designated F-104N models (N811NA, N812NA, and N813NA); However, a two-seat F-104B (USAF SN 57-1303, registered later as NASA N819NA) was made available to NASA’s Ames Research Center at Moffett Field (CA) in December 1959; it became the fourth member of the Dryden Starfighter fleet, after an initial brief assignment at Ames (NASA had decided to establish all of its high-speed research operations at the new Edwards desert facility). One of only 26 two-seat B model Starfighters made by Lockheed in 1957-58, with the addition of this two-seat Mach 2 aircraft another dimension was added to the Center's research capability. The two-seat Starfighter consisted initially carrying instrumented individuals and/or experiments in the back cockpit (with a safety pilot flying the aircraft from the front cockpit), however, that role was soon greatly expanded. As a result, the conduct of numerous bio-medical experiments was enabled, many of which were directly applicable to the space program and which would prove to be of critical use to the aerospace medical community.

Later designated NASA 819, this two-seat Starfighter played a vital role in establishing the Ground Command Guidance (GCG) system used at the Flight Research Center. Some early studies 57-1303 participated in involved zero-G experiments using a small tank designed to supply fuel continuously under zero-G conditions. Another important project involving 57-1303 was a study of indirect viewing systems that incorporated a binocular periscopic apparatus in the aft cockpit. At hypersonic speeds (those reached by an earth orbital vehicle, for instance), the windscreen of an aircraft can exceed 2000 degrees F and needs thermally specialized glass to withstand the enormous aerodynamic heating effects generated by high-Mach speeds. The thought was that If the aircraft’s windscreen could be done away with and an indirect viewing system utilized as a replacement, a large savings in weight and structural complexity would be realized. With the binocular periscopic viewing system flight tested on 57-1303, it was found that the field of view was an excellent 180 degrees laterally and about 60 degrees vertically. Aside from some minor concerns with parallax and depth perception, and some difficulty with the need for a pilot to keep his face pressed against eyepieces during elevated G maneuvers, the system was quite successful and flight test pilots in the aft cockpit used the apparatus to make simulated X-15 unpowered (glide) descents and landings. This research later greatly aided development of the Space Shuttle’s flight control systems.

Two other areas in which this aircraft made important contributions were the development of the low lift/drag approach and landing patterns used by the X-15 and lifting bodies, as well as the testing of a ballute (‘balloon-parachute’) system. NASA N819NA was a major player in the early work done on simulated Shuttle landing approaches, including night flights, to develop and standardize the low-lift/hi-drag approach and landing technique used so successfully in a number of advanced programs flown at Dryden. The principal ballute experiment involved obtaining data to evaluate a towed high-speed decelerator through a Mach number range from 0.7 to approximately 2.0, as a system that could be used to increase the drag of an asymmetrical vehicle on entry to Earth’s atmosphere. The ballute itself was a semi-spherical shaped device, 4 feet in diameter, similar to a small balloon that self-inflated with the air picked up by the small air scoops located around its circumference when deployed. It was installed in the drag-chute compartment of 57-1303 and deployed in a manner similar to that of a conventional drag chute. Up until these tests, the state-of-the-art research on ballutes was limited to wind-tunnel studies and rocket flight tests of ballutes behind symmetrical bodies. The two-seat F-104B Starfighter (57-1303) presented a test platform by which study of the ballute system could be expanded. Investigated intensely as a means of decelerating the atmospheric descent of space vehicles (such as orbital capsules and lifting body type spacecraft), the ballute system was eventually ruled out for use on atmosphere re-entering American spacecraft, but much of the applied theoretical investigation into its suitability was carried out by 57-1303 as the principal ballute ‘proof of concept’ test aircraft.

During its career of more than 18 years of NASA flight test work, 57-1303 (NASA N819NA) flew 1,731 flights and was flown by at least 19 different pilots (sixteen from Dryden, two from Ames, and one from the US Air Force). These individuals included Apollo astronauts (such as Rusty Schweikert and Neil Armstrong), X-15 pilots (Bill Dana, Joe Walker, Joe White), General Chuck Yeager, Steve Ishmael, lifting body as well as XB-70 and YF-12 pilots, and a host of other famous flight test names.

In addition to the above work, N819NA was used extensively in biomedical research and experimentation programs, since it allowed aircrew who were fully bio-telemetered to undergo physiological evaluation in flight profiles at high speeds and high altitudes. One such program involved the development of miniaturized physiological instrumentation for measuring physical performance parameters (heart & respiratory rates, 02 consumption, and pulse wave velocity) of aircrew. Recording pulse wave velocity provided definition of the time delay in the pulse wave traveling from the heart to an extremity—in this application, a fingertip. These measurements allowed researchers to predict a pilot’s workload. One major ‘spin-off’ from this work was a ‘spray-on’ electrode used to obtain in-flight electrocardiograms, an invention that was later widely used in civilian hospital emergency rooms. Another result of this important biomedical experimentation carried out in 57-1303 was a real-time electrocardiogram instrument system that has found successful use in civilian paramedical rescue applications all over the world. Additionally, NASA 819NA was instrumental in the development of an in-flight mass spectrometer to analyse breathing and in testing of advanced aircrew cooling systems. Various key crew components of the Apollo spacecraft’s life support systems (the Apollo spacesuits) were also flight tested at high altitudes as part of their proof-of-concept evaluation in the aft cockpit of this two-seat Starfighter.

A further important area of special research carried out in NASA N819NA involved development of the Ground Command Guidance system (GCG, already mentioned), which was a forerunner of the Remotely Augmented Vehicle System (RAVS) that is now in standard use. Another program flight tested in NASA N819NA was known as the ‘Big Boom’ project. This involved flight of the aircraft through linkage with a special computerised ground flight profile that would allow energy from sonic booms to be focused on a specific area of the earth for various scientific measurements; the program took place in Ely, Nevada, and the aircraft was deployed for several months to that site for this study.

Eventually, after 19 years of extensive use, 57-1303 (NASA N819NA) was retired from active service in April of 1978 (last NASA flight: April 21, 1978) and flown to the US Air Force’s AMARC (Aircraft Maintenance and Recovery Center) facility in Tucson, Arizona. Although most of the 26 surviving B model Starfighters retired to AMARC were transferred to the Jordanian and Taiwanese air forces (such was the fate of 57-1304, N819NA’s sister ship) in the late 70s and early 80s, 57-1303 somehow escaped this fate and was put in the hands of the National Museum of the US Air Force at Wright-Patterson AFB, Dayton, Ohio, which then allocated it to the Aerospace Museum of California’s aircraft collection.

Flown to McClellan AFB in the hold of a cargo aircraft in 1983, after having its General Electric J-79-GE-3B engine removed, and subsequent to having undergone required ‘de-mil’ procedures, the aircraft was put on display as the star of the museum’s ‘Century Series’ fighter row. In 1991, the aircraft received a new paint job provided by the McClellan Sacramento ALC, which is a generic Starfighter paint scheme that is not representative of the aircraft’s appearance either in its original ‘bare metal’ configuration (when first used by Dryden) or of the final white, dark blue, and sky-blue NASA paint scheme it was retired in. The museum eventually plans to have 57-1303 repainted in the correct three-color NASA livery it wore on its final flight at Dryden FRC, but due to the considerable expense involved (estimated at about $12,000.00), this plan has not yet been carried out.

Lockheed F-104B Starfighter SN 57-1303 / NASA N819NA is today maintained in generally excellent static condition and is carefully look after by its present museum crew of three. The cockpit is authentically restored to correct functional appearance, complete with the upwards-firing Lockheed-Stanley C-2 ejection seats (replacing the original C-1 downward-firing model that proved very dangerous to use in actual flight operations) that were used in it, 140000-44 model seat-survival kits, and all key instrumentation intact.

On special museum ‘open-cockpit days’ (typically, four times a year), the canopies of Starfighter 57-1303 are opened and museum visitors are allowed to view the cockpit area of the aircraft. Visitors are not normally allowed actual entry into the cockpit (that is, sitting in the cockpit is not permitted), however, due to cramped space and safety considerations. The major structural differences between the original single-seat ‘A’ model and the two-seat ‘B’ model consisted of elimination of the 20 mm Vulcan cannon armament so that a second crew seat could be added, reduction of internal fuselage fuel capacity for the same reason, the installation of an extended canopy glazing over both seats, an increase in the size of the vertical stabilizer by about 21% (identical to that used on the later F-104G model) with power boost system, and replacement of the forward retracting nose gear by a rearward retracting system. All F-104B Starfighters were initially produced with a simplified extended canopy glazing and had two downward firing Lockheed C-1 ejection seats (the original C-1 seat ejected downwards out of the aircraft’s belly—a technique later found to be inherently hazardous at low altitudes). When these seats were replaced by the safer upwards firing rocket-catapulted C-2 seats in 1961, a newer, somewhat reconfigured extended canopy glazing was installed that allowed the canopies of fore and aft seats to be explosively blown off for emergency egress.

Performance specifications of the two-seat F-104B model Starfighter are as follows: Wing span: 21 feet, nine inches; Length: 54 feet, 8 inches; Height: 13 feet, 5 inches; Wing area: 196.1 square feet (resulting in VERY high wing loading of about 90 pounds per ft. sq—the highest of any aircraft ever built!); Empty weight: 13,327 pounds; Maximum weight: 14,912 pounds; Combat weight: 17,812 pounds; Maximum speed at altitude: At least 1,200 mph at 65,000 feet; Cruise speed: 516 mph; Maximum rate of climb: 54,500 feet per minute! Service ceiling: 64,795 feet; Normal range (with internal fuel only): 460 miles (internal fuel capacity 897 US gallons, or 2,847 lbs); Maximum range: 1,225 miles (fitted with external twin wingtip drop tanks); Engine: General Electric J79-GE-3A or 3B axial flow turbojet with afterburner; Rated power (without afterburner): 9,600 pounds static thrust; Rated power (with full afterburner): 14,800 pounds static thrust.

One curious thing that came to light in researching the past of this aircraft is the following: At least a few of the Dryden and/or Lockheed personnel apparently knew this aircraft as “Howling Howland”. The strange name might be somewhat puzzling, as it indeed was to us when this fact was first uncovered. A possible and in fact very likely partial explanation of the name may be found in the fact that the General Electric J79-GE-3A/B turbojet (with afterburner) that is fitted to the F-104B Starfighter produces a very unusual sound that is unique to these aircraft (F-104s) alone. This sound, variously described as ‘howling’, ‘shrieking’, ‘high-pitched moaning’, or even as a ‘wounded banshee scream’, resulted from the passage of fuel from the primary and secondary fuel jets in the exhaust section of engine as the airflow is disturbed by the engine bypass flaps during various throttle positions. Somewhat the same principle is responsible for the sound that is produced by pursing the lips and blowing over the top of a glass bottle neck (“Venturi effect’). Whatever the cause, the ‘howling’ sound is a most unique characteristic of the F-104 aircraft and may be produced at will by the pilot either in the air or on the ground by certain settings of the throttle.

A further curious fact is that the name ‘Howland’ was the name of a certain owlish character in 1950s era cartoonist Walt Kelly’s cartoon strip POGO. ‘Howland Owl’ was depicted as a somewhat pretentious, bookish, effete character who was always a bit uncertain about his acquired learning and feigned sophistry in the POGO strip.

However, the name ‘Howland’ was also the last name, interestingly enough, of a very distinguished Lockheed Aircraft Company Flight Test Engineer whose full name was Dr. W. L. Howland. Over the course of Dr. Howland’s 25 years of work with Lockheed, his participation in the 5-year F-104 Starfighter Phase One flight testing is most notable as having had critical importance in the developmental research done on the Starfighter. A large body of Dr. Howland’s personal records and flight test documentation very recently disclosed to the public his key role in ‘making the Starfighter fly properly’.

Returning to the cartoon character, ‘Howland Owl’ was coincidentally featured on the first (unofficial) emblem of the newly founded US Air Force Test Pilot School, when it moved from back east to its new Muroc Army Air Base location (Edwards) in the mid 40s. On that emblem, 'Howland' is shown disconcertedly riding what was at that time a new P-80 Shooting Star as it plunged downwards in an uncontrolled dive (see illustration adjacent). This use of the Howland Owl character in association with the Edwards Test Pilot School, together with the Starfighter engine’s known tendency to ‘howl’, and the importance of Dr. W. L. Howland in the Lockheed F-104 flight test program presents strong circumstantial evidence for adoption of the name apparently associated with NASA F-104B, N819NA/ 57-1303 (i.e. ‘Howling Howland’).

Whether this speculation is correct or not remains as yet to be determined, since no conclusive corroboration of this information has yet been uncovered. It does remain a most intriguing possibility, however, and if the story is true , it is also a most amusing ‘personalisation’ and further fascinating bit of history attached to this uniquely important aircraft in NASA’s Dryden stable of Lockheed F-104 Starfighters, and to its status as the only two-seat ‘B’ model Starfighter ever to be used at Dryden (NASA used several ex-Luftwaffe TF-104G two-seat trainers at Dryden, after ‘Howland’ was retired, and it is easy to misidentify an F-104B model for an TF-104G, if tail numbers are not distinctly viewable).

Today, all the NASA fleet of F-104 Starfighters have been retired, most to air museums (one to the Edwards museum, another to the Estrella Air Museum in Paso Robles, and still another to Yeager’s near-by Grass Valley, CA, airport).

At any rate, ‘Howland’ is a unique and spectacular remnant of the so-called ‘Golden Age’ of aeronautical progress that occurred in the approximate 10-year period following the end of the Second World War. It has a visual beauty that compares (in my opinion) favorably to the most sensual, hot spirited woman alive; it’s THAT sort of gonadal response that it stirs up in those of us who have flown it or had any sort of close association with it. Anyone fully aware of what it is like to rip through the heavens in an airplane like this at Mach-2 (it is still one of the fastest airplanes in the world, to this day) would have little trouble understanding what is meant by “Mach-2 orgasms”, I think.

Regardless of the fact that I belong to a rather unique club known as the 'Eleven Mile High Club' (membership limited to those who have had coitus in a lavatory on the Concorde, while traveling at 60,000 feet and twice the speed of sound—which is about 1,200 or so mph at that altitude), for me the sexiest thing on earth that you can do with your clothes on is fly an F-104 ‘Zipper’ (that was the most popular name for the plane among pilots and not without a certain wry appropriateness, I might add). Been there and done that, so it’s the least I can do to take care of Howland and give it the occasional bath every now and again!

It bears mentioning here the interesting fact that as a teenager in 1960, I watched Howland perform at the Edwards AFB Flight Test Center Armed Forces Day air show, leading a flight of NASA Starfighters over the field in formation. Little did I ever think in my wildest dreams that some 47 years later I’d be washing down and hosing off that same aircraft, taking tender care of it not unlike a rancher would care for a favorite retired old quarter horse! Funny how life turns out, sometimes!

At any rate, my several days down at Dryden this past week were quite interesting (as always) and most of the time I felt like a kid who had just learned he was Willy Wonka’s long-lost nephew. We worked with the egress and life support guys throughout most of the regular hours but also had a few odd hours to tour the Edwards facility and refamiliarise ourselves with all the changes that have taken place since our first visits there, back in the 60s.

Too soon, it was time to depart for home and after returning to the Mojave Airport, where we had parked our former Czech two-seat L-39 Albatros jet trainer we did hele (preflighted) on the bird, filed our flight plan, did a last check at the end of the runway, and finally lifted our gear just before dusk for a beautifully serene cruise over the dusky Sierra Nevada mountains. Sitting up there listening to the muted whine of the jet’s turbine was probably better than having a dress circle seat at the Wiener Staatsoper during a performance of Mozart’s Die Zauberflöte, by my reckoning at least (and I have had that splendid Vienna experience, LoL).

Like I said earlier, I may not believe in conventional gods and goddesses, but when you are up there in the endless infinity of that chilled, frosty stratosphere, watching the first stars of the night flare up in the depths of the cobalt sky through your canopy, it’s almost enough to make you want to believe that you really can reach out and touch the breasts of God (I have been assured by numbers of female friends that God is a woman)! And if that ain’t also the best existential sex you can have, my name isn’t Col. Alfred E. Newman.

Be well, check six, and keep your speed up, friends.

[E ku'u kumu e, mai hopohopo, ua kapa 'ia ko'u inoa waena, 'o ia 'o 'severe turbulence!']  :))