Posts: 3533 From: Ontario, Canada Registered: Oct 2010
posted 04-10-2021 12:41 AM
This 1950s photo shows the D-558-2 Skyrocket launching from a P2B-1S mothership at the NACA High-Speed Flight Station (later Dryden) in California. The P2B-1S was the U.S. Navy version of the B-29 bomber.
In March 1956, there was an in-flight emergency. The D-558-2 pilot was Jack McKay. The P2B-1S mothership pilots were Stan Butchart and Neil Armstrong.
The caption says that the D-558-2 was jettisoned "after" the prop failure. Wouldn't that have been disastrous for both aircraft and both crews?
A second source here mentions the D-558-2 was launched seconds before the prop failure, which seems more likely.
Jeff Member
Posts: 538 From: Fayetteville, NC, USA Registered: May 2009
posted 04-10-2021 05:57 AM
In this 2011 interview with Neil Armstrong around the 6:20 mark he talks about the prop failure and the actions taken to land the crippled B-29.
micropooz Member
Posts: 1582 From: Washington, DC, USA Registered: Apr 2003
posted 04-10-2021 06:02 AM
Per Butchart's account in "Toward Mach 2: The Douglas D-558 Program" NASA SP-4222, they dropped the Skyrocket seconds before the P2B's engine uncorked. Other accounts indicate that the prop blade went right through the P2B's bomb bay, right where the Skyrocket had been (loaded with rocket fuel) just seconds before.
Posts: 3533 From: Ontario, Canada Registered: Oct 2010
posted 04-10-2021 08:43 PM
Armstrong's first-hand account is riveting.
LM-12 Member
Posts: 3533 From: Ontario, Canada Registered: Oct 2010
posted 04-12-2021 08:49 PM
The post-landing photo of the damaged P2B-1S (B-29) also shows that the propeller blades on engine #3 were feathered to reduce wind resistance.
oly Member
Posts: 1210 From: Perth, Western Australia Registered: Apr 2015
posted 04-12-2021 09:55 PM
More telling is the fact that number two prop does not appear to be feathered. With this engine out, it would have acted as a huge drag, making controlling the aircraft with only one working outboard engine even more difficult.
LM-12 Member
Posts: 3533 From: Ontario, Canada Registered: Oct 2010
posted 04-17-2021 02:32 AM
Butchart's account in "Toward Mach 2" on page 45 seems to indicate that he and Armstrong landed the damaged B-29 with engine #2 as the one working engine.
...I could only use [engine] number two. Number one had too much torque [being further out on the wing]. And both of us on the rudder could not hold it.
oly Member
Posts: 1210 From: Perth, Western Australia Registered: Apr 2015
posted 04-17-2021 03:15 AM
In Armstrong's description, the incident occurred overhead the dry lakebed, and the two crew worked together, gliding the aircraft towards the landing site. But describes losing 3 of the 4 powerplants, with only number one remaining operational.
LM-12 Member
Posts: 3533 From: Ontario, Canada Registered: Oct 2010
posted 05-09-2021 05:16 PM
The B-29 incident is also mentioned in this 2004 Dryden news release about Neil Armstrong:
The B-29 mothership shuddered, and pilot Neil Armstrong, flying the airplane from the co-pilot's seat, glimpsed a bullet shaped propeller hub shoot past the cockpit. He looked over and saw that the number four propeller had disintegrated. Armstrong, along with pilot Stan Butchart, reacted coolly, testing the bomber's controls. Butchart's were gone, but Armstrong still had some flight control linkage, so together they prepared the aircraft for an emergency landing. They had been trying unsuccessfully for some time to feather the number four propeller. Seconds before the disintegration, they had jettisoned the D-558-II Skyrocket research aircraft with pilot Jack McKay aboard to land early, due to a stuck valve on the Skyrocket, as well as the large workload the propeller problem presented. McKay landed the Skyrocket safely on the dry lakebed below.
This hair-raising moment in 1956 over California's Mojave Desert, and others experienced later in space, footnote the illustrious career of Neil Armstrong, the first man to walk on the moon.
posted 04-10-2021 12:41 AM
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