Let the shockwave topple monuments

[sovay]

I felt much more ambivalent about the development of the Bell X-1 after I learned the history of the Miles M.52, but I still recognize the loss of Chuck Yeager. I grew up building and launching model rockets; one of my childhood talismans was a Matchbox SR-71. I can't remember not knowing about him.

Comments

[selkie]

I have learned more about your dreams of flight in the past two weeks than the previous nineteen years, but you’ve always been looking up, so it makes a wonderful kind of sense.

This thing I am writing for you is a MESS but I am pretty committed to the disaster.

[minoanmiss]

Oh wow. "Raising a light to his memory" takes on a whole new meaning for him.

[phi]

No! I hadn't read elsewhere, which is a testament to how far I've drifted from my career beginnings in aerospace. But gosh, some childhood heroes are supposed to be immortal. Even recognizing how problematic the whole test pilot culture was, it was also fucking cool and I imprinted on it young. I'm fairly certain that my desperate childhood desire to be a test pilot (in a corps that was still de facto all male) was a significant contributing factor to my gender dysphoria.

[sara]

Aw hell.

When I was growing up, most of the family worked in aerospace in one way or another. Our heroes have always been pilots.

[davidgillon]

I liked the tweet from Dan Rather:
'Thinking more of Chuck Yeager, and the lyrics of the old Air Force song echo in my mind: "Off we go into the wild blue yonder, Climbing high into the sun." RIP.'

[heron61]

"I can't remember not knowing about him." Same here, although I had no idea he'd lived this long.

one of my childhood talismans was a Matchbox SR-71. I can't remember not knowing about him. I'd have loved one of those. My own young association with the SR-71 was it was the plane the X-Men flew.

Allow me:

[nodrog]

> I grew up building and
> launching model rockets

Me, too.

http://www.accur8.com/Estes_Library.html

Ninfinger's scans are good, plus very much more:

http://www.ninfinger.org/rockets/rockets.html

And then there's the source:

https://estesrockets.com/catalogs/

Many fond memories.

Re: Allow me:

[sovay]

And then there's the source

That's them! We built from kits and we free-handed from parts and flew the same ones year after year as long as we could. We still have a few doughty survivors around the house. Several were eaten by trees and at least one by a power line and I still hope that someone in Boston proper was confused by the one that sailed cheerfully away over the skyline, having been mistakenly turned into a paraglider by a too-large parachute.

We had planned to build model rockets this summer with my niece, too. Fingers crossed for the next.

[sovay]

Same here, although I had no idea he'd lived this long.

I asked spatch how old he was when he died and it turned out it was exactly the age I'd thought and I hadn't realized until then that I must have carried his birth year at the back of my head for ready calculation, but here we are. There are writers and actors I can't do that with!

(I have been startled by other people, though. When Christopher Fry died in 2005, I legitimately thought he'd been dead since the '70's.)

My own young association with the SR-71 was it was the plane the X-Men flew.

Fair enough!

[sovay]

'Thinking more of Chuck Yeager, and the lyrics of the old Air Force song echo in my mind: "Off we go into the wild blue yonder, Climbing high into the sun." RIP.'

I like that, too. Thank you for passing it on.

[sovay]

Aw hell.

*hugs*

When I was growing up, most of the family worked in aerospace in one way or another. Our heroes have always been pilots.

My father's uncle was a designer and a pilot. He had Harriet Quimby in his family tree. I almost expected, as a child, to learn to fly when I grew up. I wanted to do aerobatics. I couldn't afford more than one lesson in college, but I loved it. The major reason I ride roller coasters is because of the sensation of flight. I am hoping (when it becomes safe to return to coaster parks) that my current medical conditions will still permit it. It's something I miss a lot.

[sovay]

No! I hadn't read elsewhere, which is a testament to how far I've drifted from my career beginnings in aerospace.

I found out because spatch saw it on Twitter!

But gosh, some childhood heroes are supposed to be immortal. Even recognizing how problematic the whole test pilot culture was, it was also fucking cool and I imprinted on it young.

Amen on both fronts.

I'm fairly certain that my desperate childhood desire to be a test pilot (in a corps that was still de facto all male) was a significant contributing factor to my gender dysphoria.

*hugs*

I think it was a very reasonable desperate desire to have. I recognize that my own relationship to things like physical endurance and injury is still kind of in need of unfucking, but I would also have taped my ribs and kept my mouth shut rather than miss my shot at supersonic flight.

[sovay]

"Raising a light to his memory" takes on a whole new meaning for him.

Stratospherically.

Re: Boldly Going

[nodrog]

I, too, have some dusty survivors, at static mount in the closet.

Our one attempt at a two-stage rocket was… amusing, in its way:   We didn't realize that a special type of engine was needed for the 1st stage, and used a normal one with its smoke tracking charge…  Giving the rocket plenty of time to lazily tip over to about 30° when the second stage lit at altitude, firing it AWAY down the sky and out of sight as though designed for the purpose!  If we’d had a radio transponder on it I doubt it would have stayed in trackable range - it was GONE.

[sovay]

I have learned more about your dreams of flight in the past two weeks than the previous nineteen years, but you’ve always been looking up, so it makes a wonderful kind of sense.

*hugs*

Stars are important.

This thing I am writing for you is a MESS but I am pretty committed to the disaster.

It was not a mess! It wasn't even all that drafty! You even had most of the blocking in there right from the start! (Your ability to draft with blocking, actually, has taken a couple of levels in the course of this book. It's cool.)

Re: Allow me:

[nodrog]

Meanwhile, Major Matt Mason, Mattel’s Man in Space® has really been there - someone's recent ultra-high-altitude exosphere balloon carried a small passenger.  I have seen that iconic Project Mercury pressure suit and yellow-visored helmet with the true blue curve of the Earth and black space beyond:  Out of suburban houses and up into actual X-15 country at long last!

(I’ve heard that John Glenn brought one with him when he flew again in the Space Shuttle, but that’s only hearsay.)

[moon_custafer]

Usually I link to this for things like the anniversary of the Challenger disaster— I’m happy to do it this time: https://youtu.be/M7PVKbbwy60 I imagine there were many, many moments in Yeager’s life when, had someone told him he’d live to be ninety-seven, he’d have had trouble believing it.