No, but you get a stocked refrigerator, which would rather have?
Never. The sexiest beast ever. But was that attempt authorized or could Chuck Yeager do anything he wanted?
ETA: Because I don’t have much problem with that.
Absolutely loved this film. Would dig seeing a film print projected again.
When things got very hot and very difficult on set, and I’d be wearing just an immense weight of camera on the Steadicam ( Arri BLIV, 535-B, Panavision LWII, etc. ) if someone asked me how I was doing, I always knew what to say.
" Maintaining an even strain. "
Flight test is a very disciplined activity with a lot of people involved. The whole point is to gather data, and you need people for that. Also, many early jet aircraft needed a starting cart to start the engines. And while Yeager was a top-notch test pilot, he wasn’t given free rein to do whatever he wanted. There were some small projects that were sort of ‘off the cuff’. For example, IIRC the M2-F1 lifting body got its start in a very low-key manner. I believe the airframe was built by someone at El Mirage, and the car used for the tow tests was built by a hot-rodder in L.A. Still, the project had to be OK’d by NASA. The F-104 scene in the movie was not accurate. The test did occur, but not as a ‘Hey, let’s steal this plane for a little while’ style of thing.
Heh. I used to say that as a kid, a decade before The Right Stuff came out. I should use it more often.
Going from memory here. It was authorized, and was not his first flight in the aircraft. He was going for an altitude record for a plane taking off under its own power. (Lots of the test flights at Edwards were carried aloft by a bomber and then dropped.) There were thrusters on the nose of the plane to push downward after it was too high for the aerodynamic control surfaces to work. Previous flights had gone as planned. The crash happened because that flight hadn’t gone high enough; the thrusters couldn’t overcome the force of the elevator and the plane started descending in a nose-high attitude.
Yeager did have the clout to do what he wanted, though. At the time, I think he was head of the test pilot school at Edwards, and appointed himself to try for the altitude record.
There may be another error in that sequence. Early F-104s had an ejection seat that fired downward, although that was changed as the program went on. I don’t know which was on the NF-104. In the movie, Yeager is clearly seen ejecting upwards.
(I read somewhere that Yeager once counted the difference between the number of takeoffs and landings in his career. The test flights at Edwards had a landing with no takeoff, and at least twice he took off and bailed out without landing.)
Love The Right Stuff. It’s tied with Bonfire for my favorite Wolfe book.
Two additional accounts on the NF-104 program. (Apologies if they were already linked earlier in the thread.)
Interview with Gen. Yeager.. Site going into some detail of the NF-104.
Love the film. I find some of the flight special effects really believable, they have a visceral reality to them.
I always took it as fairly gracious to Gus Grissom. Chuck does defend him and give the other wisecracking fighter jocks a good talking down. The film shows him stuggling in the capsule, and then the hatch blowing from the outside. The seas were rough, the hatch blew, and instead of being treated like a hero Gus gets a frowny face from everyone. When I first saw the movie it made me feel sympathy for him. I didn’t take it as implying he really blew the hatch, but that from the situational perspective it looked like he may have, and whether true or not it overshadowed his actual accomplishments.
I agree he had balls of steel, and he still died tragically locked inside a tin can death trap.
Zombienauts!!!
I did wish that the had actually shown Cooper’s flight, which IMO was the second coolest thing ever done in space, aYuri Gagarins entire flight being the first.
BTW, I always thought that the last thought in Gus Grissom’s mind must have been “now the damn thing refuses to open”. 
If you haven’t already, see the movie and THEN read the book. In that order. If you do it the other way around, like I did, well, you won’t enjoy the movie as much cause you’ll be picking it apart.
Glenn and Schirra proved Grissom didn’t panic and blow the hatch. Both Glenn and Schirra did blow their hatches and got bruised hands from how hard they had to hit the button. Grissom had no bruise, therefore he didn’t blow the hatch himself.
The fireflies were a mystery during Glenn’s flight. Carpenter proved their source was the Mercury spacecraft itself. And at some point, Schirra referred to the fireflies as “The constellation Urion”.
The thinking around very early NASA was that the Mercury crew members would just be medical test subjects. They weren’t interested in hiring pilots and had even come up with a “want ad” for perspective Astronauts. Ike shut that idea down.
The Blu-Ray is out next week…
I recently read Michael Collin’s autobiography, ‘Carrying the Fire’. At one point he describes training in a new spacesuit when he started to feel claustrophobic, overheated and panicky, this happened several times and he was afraid to bring it to the attention of the authorities as he would probably have been grounded.
He managed to get the situation resolved by the simple expedient of asking for the oxygen flow to be increased, but he never did tell the powers that be what he had experienced.
Heavily tested and experienced or not, and I have nothing but admiration and respect for them, but they’re still only human.
btw I agree with Fluffybob’s summary of the hatch-blowing incident and the movies depiction of it above.
In the movie after they have had the NASA staff hammer this point time and time again, they decide not to show the events of Cooper’s flight, which very clearly showed that NASA had erred.:rolleyes:
Incidentally, Cooper’s flight also put paid to the idea of civilian and female astronauts, Harrison Schmitt et al, were trained to fly before they qualified. Ironically, the Sovs reached the opposite conclusion following Tereshkova’s flight ( where she corrected unexpected problems that arose) but the fact was unknown for near 40 years. The US very happily spread rumours that she had panicked during her flight ( quite the opposite). No US woman would ever go into space until deep into the Shuttle era. The USSR learnt from factory worker Valentina and hired civilians. And did not send another woman up for 20 years. 
Got any Beemans?
After the capsule was finally recovered, it was discovered that it hit the water so hard that the frame bent. Which likely compromised the charges and led to a premature discharge.
Yeah, I think I got me a stick.
Well loan me some will ya? I’ll pay ya back later.
Fans of that exchange might enjoy this clip.
Had you been watching the movie carefully, you’d know that a jimp is the spaceman that flies in the pot.
Great movie. I love the scene where Yeager defends Gus when everyone else is mocking him.
For me that is the most macho thing in the movie and that is one macho movie.
Is that a man?