Henderson Daily Dispatch

Army’s Rocket Plane Makes Good In Test

LOS ANGELES—(P)—A tiny plane with which the Army Air Forces and Bell Aircraft Corp., its maker, expect to delve into the uncharted realm of supersonic speed, has successfully completed its first tests.

The XS-1, with 23-year-old pilot Chalmers (Slick) Goodlin, New Alexandria, Pa., at the controls, was cut loose from the belly of a B-29 bomber over Muroc Army Air Base Monday. Seconds after America's first rocket-propelled plane dropped away from the big bomber, Goodlin turned on the power, and the craft darted away with a momentum which the former Navy pilot compared to the thrust from a catapult aboard a carrier.

The plane is designed to fly at 1,700 miles an hour, but Goodlin made no attempt to step it up that high. He loafed along at a mere 550, using first one cylinder, then two, and finally—for only a few seconds—all four.

The plane was cut loose at 25,000 feet. Goodlin climbed under his own power to 35,000, meanwhile diving, banking and climbing. He flew for 19 minutes, not quite seven under power, and made a perfect landing with his fuelless engine idle.

The plane's power is measured in terms of thrust, rather than horsepower. But R. M. Stanley, Eric, Okla., Bell's chief engineer and designer of the plane, said by the only available means of comparison, the engine could be said to develop 30,000 horsepower.

It burns ethyl alcohol, oxidized by liquid oxygen.

The engine is unbelievably small to generate such a tremendous thrust. Without fuel it weighs only 210 pounds, and its overall length is 56 inches. The plane itself is smaller than the average fighter, measuring 31 feet, from tail to tip, with a wing span of only 28 feet.