April 20, 1961 - the first in the world rocket flight.
Bell Rocket Belt - the first aircraft taking off. More
drama is described here . In short, the inventor Wendell Moore on February 17, 1961 injured his leg in training, so Harold Graham was the first to fly.
Under the cut - the translation of the interview with the world's first pilot.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ysj0_jNftGM- My name is Hall Graham, 45 years ago I became the world's first jetpack pilot.
- How did it happen?
- It happened because the inventor, the one who created all this, the person with the idea, the engineer invented this satchel, but he could not just ask someone else to fly this thing, and he himself was about 40 years old, therefore he himself climbed into this satchel, tested it repeatedly, very much needed to be revealed at that time.
- Yes of course.
- ... and, unfortunately, but fortunately for me, he needed a younger guy, and I played hockey, rocked then, and now he took me.
- And you were a teenager at the time?
- Well, a 26 year old teenager. We shared the roles, he had a morning call, and mine - in the afternoon. It worked normally for the first two days, on the second day we had a fall, he fell, he broke his knee and that's it, he dropped out of the test part. Therefore, instead of half of the work, once a day, I began to do everything. Became the representative. So I got into it all. I had some experience in ...
“But how did they find you?”
- Well, then, a week before this I left Bell.
- Have you left Bell? What did you do at Bell?
- Yes, I left Bell. I was a rocket engineer and participated in the work of the John Glen project, remember this ... Bell had the task to develop a stabilization system. There was a lot of work. A year and a half I worked two shifts, three shifts in a row, seven days a week, and you know, a year and a half of this ... I didn’t see any girls, heh, I also remember going home and falling asleep at a traffic light, I got home at 7 am ... at some point I thought: "well, that's enough is enough." In general, they were looking for a guy, and they said "let's take him, he seems to be in the subject." They called me, they say "come on, see what we are doing here, what you will fly on." And I said, “Oh, this is the daytime! And five days! Write me down! ”
“Have you been a test pilot before or have you already become?”
- I did not understand ... And, no, that's just Bell and the military wanted to convey the idea to the buyers, well, mainly, they were military, that any random person from the street could do this, he would not necessarily be a pilot ... And yet ! In the process, we traveled to different places, demonstrating a satchel, and we worked in terrible conditions, heat, cold ... Besides, every person in this project, three-quarters of those participating in this project, were Bell engineers, there were pilots ... It was like doing love, this feeling of flying, I want to say, hey, I want it too ...
- Hey, I want it too (female laughter)! When you first wore this thing and took to the air for the first time, what was it like?
- This is a very memorable moment. The highest blood pressure I ever had was 140, and it was before the first flight with a safety cable. Those. I had insurance, and yet ...
- It was scary?
- Blood pressure is only additional evidence - it was the moment of the highest concentration in my career.
- What do you like best?
- Landing. Safe landing.
- Seriously? Didn't you like to be up there?
- You know, in the films they show there how they fly, they say something abstract, but to be honest, at that moment, when you get off the ground, you think: “Okay, I have a maximum
21 seconds, and I really want my kids (pointing down) to reach the ground, ”in 15 seconds. Those. you know, so what is it - to fly in front of President Kennedy, think, a big deal, which, by the way, was fun, but to get to the earth safe and sound, this is the first thing you think. Then yes, you think, “but that’s not a bad thing,” but at the moment of take-off, it’s like a whole return.
- I understand, you need to keep in mind a lot of things, and not to groan and gasp around.
- In general, everything went well on the whole, but, you see, this is not sitting at the helm, glancing at the fleeing landscape.
- How are you flying now?
- Yes, now I fly, but only six hours at the helm, not 16 seconds.
- You after all changed the profession of engineer to pilot?
- Well, yes, the love of flying is like ecstasy for me, nothing is more defiant, you need to take into account a lot, the weather, landing conditions, etc. You know, you will not get such impressions while driving on the highway.
- Ie is it your passion
- I had a lot of passions ... you know, being a child, one thing is exciting to you, then another. That motorcycle, then fishing with spinning, but then these hobbies pass, and then in life you are already concentrating, focusing on something. But flights are probably the only thing to which I have been faithful since the distant 1961.
Part 2
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3ysB9g9x314&t=87s- When you had a satchel, how did people react? What prompted you to this?
- Well, if you are talking about the feeling of coolness (laughs), then yes, it certainly was. After each flight, reporters ran up with cameras, people applauded, although I did not hear this because of the helmet, but I saw a jubilant crowd, then I saw everyone on the recordings looking at me.
“Did that mean something to you, besides a safe landing?”
- Well, this question is not very good for me ... Being a pilot of something completely new, previously unknown, is very unusual.
- But you already had a similar experience, you worked on the “Mercury” project, and in others, and these are also pioneer projects in their field ...
“C'mon, for the Mercury project, maybe ten thousand engineers worked.” You do not think that I could say: “Hey, John Glenn, everything was normal there, I tested it” ... At Bell, the work was done in the workshop, I had a very small area of work. And in the case of the knapsack - so I am in it! I am in the center of focus.
“Do you still visit the jet pack?” Why?
- And how, so much time devoted to this, all the familiar people. I happen to give presentations there. 46 years ago, it was a decent time, you will not get a postcard.
- What didn't you like about your job?
- Fail failures.
“When did it happen?”
- In Cape Canaveral, we had a demonstration using a platform on the tower, to which, as was intended, I had to take off, but something went wrong, so people had to urgently leave the tower so as not to suffer. Then the demonstration failed. The flight ended with my fall from a height of 6-7 meters, then I hit my head hard.
- Oh my God…
- Oh well, nothing, you see, still alive. And we did not know then why it happened. Only a couple of years understood the reason.
- And there was something that pushed you to fly? Or maybe there was someone who inspired you at some special moment?
- Do you mean by jet or jetpack? Because, you know, these are quite different things ... I can’t name any particular event, rather there were a lot of them. As I said, in the draft with a knapsack there were three or four pilots, one of them took me to fly with him ... Ie the idea of becoming a pilot somehow accumulated on the sly, a little here, a little there. Sometimes people approached me later and started: “Well, I always wanted to fly, but I don’t have time, etc. etc., ”to which I answered them:“ Look, take a hundred dollars, go to the local airport, take one lesson, and in one hour you will already know whether it is yours or not. ” After all, this is how to do ... (laughs and waves his hand).
“A new star is burning in the sky. It was lit, of course, by hooligans. ”(Valentin Gaft)
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