Talk:Douglas D-558-2 Skyrocket

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Military history: Aviation / North America / United States

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I've heard the M2 flt was because Scotty'd heard USAF was about to go M2, & wanted USN to get cred. The record lasted about 1 day... Trekphiler 02:38, 6 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]

D-558-2 stabilizer configuration[edit]

Wasn't extending the vertical stabilizer was independent of the canopy modification? The canopy was changed early in 1948 (January?) on the #1 Skyrocket. I'm pretty sure extending the vertical stabilizer was a response to a transonic roll instability that showed up early in the program. That probably was done before the end of 1948. When time permits I'll check on it, and will make a minor edit if my recollection is correct.

On the note about the Mach 2 flight, Scott Crossfield was flying for NACA (not the Navy) when he flew the Skyrocket. He broke the record in the #2 Skyrocket, whose best known non-NACA pilot was Bill Bridgeman, flying for Douglas. Bridgeman flew its first flights after Douglas modified it to its air-launched rocket-only configuration -- possibly the best-known Skyrocket photo it of Bridgeman in the #2 on (I think) its first air drop. That was done with the Skyrocket bearing its Navy paint, when Douglas turned it back to NASA and Crossfield it was immediately repainted in NACA paint.

It's true there was some "interesting" competition for Mach 2 at Edwards at that time. It took Crossfields's skill as an engineer to figure out how to just barely get the Skyrocket to Mach 2 and his piloting skill to very precisely fly the required flight profile. They barely beat Yeager and the Bell X-1A to Mach 2, and of course there's lots more to that story.

On the whole though NACA and later NASA put forth a lot of effort to do good flight research instead of just lurching toward new records. The Skyrocket program was an example of one that did A LOT of flying just to gather data, usually trying to cover the flight envelope well as they expanded it. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Paul Raveling (talk • contribs) 01:23, 9 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Specifications section: which is which ?[edit]

In the Specifications: Performance section, the Maximum speed when air-launched, and the Rate of climb under rocket power only, are each given two values, but obviously need to be disambiguated as to which is which. Darkman101 (talk) 01:26, 13 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]