The Mammoth Book of Space Exploration and Disasters

Eugene F. May was test pilot for Douglas Aircraft from 1941 to 1952 and contributed much to the advancement of aviation. He is best known for his work with the Skystreak (the first supersonic jet aircraft) and the Skyrocket (the first Mach 2 aircraft). He was only the sixth person to fly supersonic but was: the first to fly faster than the speed of sound in a jet aircraft; the first to fly faster than the speed of sound in an aircraft taking off under its own power; the first to fly faster than the speed of sound at ground level; the first to fly faster than the speed of sound in two different aircraft models; and the first grandfather to fly supersonic!

When Gene May decided he didn’t want to continue with the Skyrocket program, Bill Bridgeman was a production test pilot for Douglas flying Skyraiders and was asked to become May’s replacement. Before making his decision, Bill went to Muroc to see the plane, talk with Gene and witness a flight. Bill Bridgeman described what it was like to be involved with a rocket plane flight:

The first Skyrocket flight I was to see was called for sunup on Friday morning. It was called for sunup so that the tricky takeoff would be blessed by the cold, stable air found over the desert only in the early-morning hours, a slight advantage for the exacting flight.

On Thursday afternoon the final preparation began. Gene May, whom I managed to keep step with, staying beside him whenever possible, read the flight plan and hit the top of the hangar over a couple of items that had slipped by Carder which May thought were – to put it quietly – ill-advised. The engineer-pilot conflict again. Gene wasn’t about to risk his neck unnecessarily just for the convenience and expedition of the program. “If you think I’m going to pull a buffet check at 4,000 feet, you’re all out of your minds,” he roared. “To hell with that stuff…” Carder deftly handled the situation, even to the extend of removing some of the offending items. It would probably delay the program, but obviously Gene wasn’t going to buy all the items and no matter how you cut it, the pilot has the last word: he flew the plane. I was in no position to take sides, not having a clear idea of what the thorn in Gene’s side was, although intuitively I leaned toward Gene’s camp – the pilot’s inbred distrust of engineers.

After winning his point, Gene hurried out of the hangar door and disappeared onto the base. I had turned briefly to watch the stiletto-nosed ship being primed for flight and he was gone. It wasn’t easy to stay with the pilot; he moved fast, never sat in a chair for more than a minute at a time. Often he would leave me in the middle of a conversation about some peculiar Skyrocket characteristic as if he suddenly remembered something more important. It was as if he never quite told me all there was to know about one of the ship’s nasty habits. I had the feeling a lot was left unsaid.

There was little point in trying to find him now. I watched the mechanics prime the Skyrocket for flight. Tomorrow he would take her up once more and the mechanics were swarming about in last-minute attendance. Outside the sun burned low over the empty miles of desert, glinting off the silver skins of the weird, still flock of experimental planes that sat along the field. Shallow waves of heat hung above the white runway, and beyond that lay the baked mud of the dry lake where the Skyrocket would scream into flight tomorrow morning.

Then she was rolled from the hangar, restrained; the enormous power required to send her 15,000 pound, sleek hull into the transonic region lay dormant… a gigantic animal in a somnambulant state, drowsy and docile.