The moment, when it finally arrived, was bittersweet—bitter for having taken three decades to complete the journey of an afternoon, sweet to have a broken circle closed at last. December 8, 1997, marked the 30th anniversary of a crash at California’s Edwards Air Force Base in which 32-year-old Major Robert H. Lawrence Jr. was killed. Most accounts refer to the crash as a training accident. In the same spirit, one would call an extreme skier’s fatal hundred-foot plunge a spill. On that day in 1967, Lawrence occupied the rear seat of an F-104D Starfighter, with Major Harvey Royer, operations chief at the Aerospace Research Pilot School, in front as pilot in command. The two took off into the pounding clarity of the desert afternoon, climbed to 25,000 feet, and began shooting approaches meant to simulate the return of a spaceplane from orbit. The profile called for a 25-degree dive (the average airliner’s glide slop is inclined about three degrees) and an airspeed of 330 mph, with thrust at idle power and landing gear, flaps, and speed brakes all fully extended. The idea was to land a fast-moving machine from which the will to fly had been largely removed. During one approach, according to the official Air Force summary, “the aircraft contacted the runway left of centerline, approximately 2,200 feet from the approach end. Both main gears collapsed on the runway on first contact, and the canopy shattered. The fuselage dragged on the runway for 214 feet before the aircraft again became airborne. It subsequently touched down at the 4,000 foot mark, veered to the left and departed the runway at the 4,235 foot mark.” Its underside blazing from the first impact, the F-104 veered off the runway and began to come apart. Both pilots ejected. Royer, badly injured, survived. Lawrence got out, but his parachute failed to deploy fully. airspacemag/space-exploration/A_Sudden_Loss_of_Altitude.html
Posted on: Wed, 04 Dec 2013 13:41:59 +0000
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