Published in the summer 2011 issue of MyLIFE magazine
The Douglas X-3, known as the Stiletto, was built to investigate the design of an aircraft suitable for sustained supersonic speeds—above Mach 2. The X-3 (shown here) was one of the many experimental planes flown by American test pilot William Bridgeman. Photos by NASA.
Books are also time machines, be they paper or electronic. Let’s say you want to know what it was like to be the first man to fly an airplane higher and faster than ever before. You could pick up the book The Lonely Sky: The Personal Story of America’s Pioneering Experimental Test Pilot, start reading and be transported into the life and experience of William Bridgeman.
So, who was this man who broke the world record for speed and helped usher in the era of supersonic flight? William Bridgeman was born in Iowa in 1916 but was raised in Malibu, Calif., where it was likely he saw some early airplane types flying over the coastline. As a teen, he joined the U.S. Navy and was present at Pearl Harbor on Dec. 7, 1945.
After leaving the Navy in 1947, he joined Douglas Aircraft Company as a production test pilot, a job in which he flew and certified for flight A-1 Skyraiders as they came off the assembly line, before they were sent to the Navy. After only a few months’ experience, he got a chance to test fly the D-558 II Skyrocket, a prototype airplane used in the new field of supersonic research.
A 1953 photo of some of the research aircraft at the National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics (NACA) High Speed Flight Research Station (now known as the the NASA Dryden Flight Research Center). The photo includes the X-3, then clockwise D-558 I, XF4D I (a Navy jet fighter prototype), and the first D-558 II Skyrocket—all flown by William Bridgeman.
Flying was in Bridgeman’s blood. After several hair-raising test flights, in May 1951, he took the Skyrocket to Mach 1, or 1,245 miles per hour. Shortly thereafter, he took it to Mach 1.88 or 1,992 miles per hour. As if speed was not enough, reaching record height was also in Bridgeman’s veins. He took the Skyrocket to an altitude of 79,494 feet—higher than any human being had ever flown before—on Skyrocket’s final test flight. And just after that flight, NASA took delivery of the craft.
Another pioneering test pilot from the U.S. Air Force—Chuck Yeager—worked with Bridgeman as a chase pilot in 1950. There are several breath-taking passages in the book in which Yeager helps Bridgeman fly and land the Skyrockets. In one instance, Bridgeman’s plane caught on fire and Yeager’s cool head helped accomplish a safe landing. On the day Bridgeman hit Mach 1.02, Yeager asked, “Did you make it, son?” After Bridgeman replied in the affirmative, Yeager said, “Terrifying, wasn’t it?”
The word “terrifying” is not a usual word in the banter of test pilots, and in the book, Bridgeman does not indicate whether he felt fear.
Viewed in this 1955 photograph is the NACA High Speed Flight Station D-558 II Skyrocket, an all-rocket powered vehicle. This aircraft was the first to reach Mach 2.
Bridgeman’s widow, Jacqueline, still lives in Malibu. She described William as “pragmatic, as test pilots usually are. He was handsome and had lots of girlfriends when I wrote an article about him for our local newspaper. He saw my article and asked me to ghostwrite a book about his life. He was flying during the day out of what was then Edwards air force base, and at night I interviewed him, asking questions that I already knew how he would answer. All the time I was writing it, I was in love with him, but he showed no interest. When the book was finished, I set sail for France to visit my ex-husband.”
Absence did make Bridgeman’s heart grow fonder, and Jacqueline became his bride. She says that she had never flown in an airplane until the book was published, and she had to overcome quite a bit of fear. But William took her up for a spin over Malibu, and from that day forward, Jacqueline lost her fear. “Actually, Bill was fearless,” she said. “He taught me to be fearless.”
In addition to William Bridgeman’s pioneering efforts in supersonic flight, he loved the ocean and was an accomplished surfer. Makaha, in Honolulu, was his favorite place to surf because he claimed the waves in Malibu were not high enough. But it was in the water that Bridgeman met his untimely death in 1968 while flying a twin-engine seaplane to Catalina Island. His remains were never recovered.
The book itself has a history. The memoir was first published in 1955. It got great reviews in The New York Times and in Time and Life magazines, and it belongs in the category of aviation classics. When Jacqueline Bridgeman realized that the book had become hard to find, she had it reprinted in 2009 in hardcover, in paperback and as an eBook.
Proceeds from the sale of the book benefit Jacqueline’s favorite charity, Doctors Without Borders.
