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From The Mojave To The Moon: Neil Armstrong's Early NASA Years
Edwards CA (SPX) Jul 19, 2004 The B-29 mothership shuddered, and 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 craft 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. Before joining NASA's astronaut corps, Armstrong served as a research pilot at the NASA High Speed Flight Station, now NASA's Dryden Flight Research Center, located on Edwards Air Force Base in Calif., from 1955-1962. The first airplane Armstrong flew at NASA Dryden was a World War II-vintage P-51 Mustang fighter. He learned the ropes of airborne data collection in this aircraft, performing many flights to hone his techniques. Early on, flying the station's modified B-29 mothership aircraft, he launched more than 100 X-plane missions.
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