First-Hand:The Second Generation X-1s - Chapter 7 of The Experimental Research Airplanes and the Sound Barrier

By David L. Boslaugh, CAPT USN, Retired

Because the Tucker was a radar picket destroyer, it lacked the two pieces of equipment that I thought really made a destroyer, namely: torpedo tubes and a siren. If you watch WW II movies about destroyers, the siren high on the mast, is the device that makes the whoop, whoop, whoop sound of ever increasing pitch that tells the rest of a formation that the ship is going after a submarine. These had not been installed to make up for the heavy topside weight of an AN/SPS-8 height finding radar installed where the torpedo tubes would have gone. I only ever saw the height finding radar in operation once during my year and a half on the Tucker. Tucker’s two-dimensional surface and air search radars were no different than those installed on the other ships in company. However, because we were a radar picket destroyer the other ships expected much better radar performance from us, and our electronic technicians and radar operators did everything they could to perpetuate the idea that our search radars were superior to theirs. By constant attention to maintenance, and vigilant watching of their scopes, our operators were almost always the first to report a new air or surface contact.

In addition to standing junior officer of the deck or combat information center watches, my main job assignment on Tucker was as damage control officer. I also had other duties as main propulsion assistant, and electrical officer. In the latter assignment I had a lot of fun because I had a device on board that could tell if our ship’s service turbo generators were running fast or slow, and even give a good estimate as to how far off their normal 60 cycles/second they were running. My homemade record player was small enough to bring with me and mount on top of the safe locker in our stateroom. If a generator was off frequency, it was very apparent in the music beat and tone of the record player, and I would call down to main control to tell them that the generator was running too slow by four cycles. The electricians would ask how I knew, and I would tell them I could tell by the flickering of the fluorescent light tubes; a blatant lie. I never told them the secret of the record player.

Duty aboard Tucker was busy but pleasant, exciting, and educational, and port calls in Japan, Formosa, Hong Kong, Okinawa, and the Philippines made our tour in the Western Pacific most enjoyable. Upon return to Long Beach, Our Skipper, Commander Robert L. Thienes, arranged for me to attend the three-month damage control school on Treasure Island in San Francisco Bay, after which I was to go to destroyer engineering officers school. After that I was to move up to be Tucker’s chief engineer. But upon return from damage control school in June 1956, I got the surprise of my life in the form of a letter from the Bureau of Naval Personnel. When Yeoman First Class Campbell told me I had a letter from BUPERS, it caused a feeling of grave apprehension because ensigns didn’t get letters from the Bureau unless they were in some kind of trouble. I had to read the letter a few times before its contents really sunk in. It was unbelievable. It said in part:

The National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics provides aerodynamic and hydrodynamic research and development of primary importance to the defense effort, and in specific support of naval aviation programs. A requirement has been developed for a limited number of naval officers to perform duty with NACA for a minimum period of two (2) years in order to assist the Committee in its scientific and technical efforts. A review of your record indicates you possess qualifications of the type desired by NACA. Accordingly, the purpose of this letter is to inform you of this unusual opportunity should you be interested in remaining on active duty beyond the expiration of your normal obligated service.

The letter went on to list the four NACA laboratories to which applicants might be assigned:

• Langley Aeronautic Laboratory at Hampton, Virginia
• Ames Aeronautic Laboratory at Moffett Field, California
• Lewis Flight Propulsion Laboratory at Cleveland, Ohio, and
• The High Speed Flight Station at Edwards, California

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That night, at a borrowed typewriter in the ship’s office, I typed up my application letter and the endorsement letter back to BUPERS that I would have to get CAPT Thienes to sign. It said simply, “Forwarded, recommending approval.” CAPT Thienes had every right and reason to draft a different endorsement saying in effect - recommending disapproval because Ens. Boslaugh has just finished damage control school, and in two weeks he will depart for engineering officer’s school. Upon his return he will take over Tucker’s engineering department. If he sent a negative endorsement I would not go to NACA. The following morning, I sat with CAPT Thienes at the wardroom table and showed him my proposed endorsement.

CAPT Thienes and I had stood many bridge watches together where I had told him of my hopes of being a naval aviator and an engineering test pilot. In turn, he was a grounded naval aviator because he had received a severe head wound while flying an F6F Grumman Hellcat during a WW II bombing attack on Saigon, French Indo China. The wound had left him with tunnel vision. In fact he had been totally blinded at first and had to be talked back to his carrier by a wingman. Then, his wingman and the landing signal officer talked him down to a near perfect landing. CAPT Thienes reviewed our plans for my fleeting up to chief engineer, and if he let me go, he was going to have to develop a new engineering officer in a hurry. This produced great pangs of guilt. Then he said, “You really want this, don't you Dave?” To which I responded with a firm, “Yes sir.” Then he said , “OK give me the damned letter before I change my mind.” Then he reached down and flipped the ship’s phone selector switch to the ship’s office and told them to, “Cancel Ensign Boslaugh’s orders to engineering officer’s school.”

Of the NACA duty stations listed in the letter, my hope was the High Speed Flight Station in the Mojave Desert. I thought there might be a good chance because the Station was clearly the closest, being only about a hundred miles north of Long Beach. If NACA was as stingy with permanent change of station funds as the Navy, it seemed a good bet. In early September 1956 all doubt was removed when a letter arrived from Phillip Walker, personnel officer of the High Speed Flight Station, arrived. It said, in part:

We have been informed that you have volunteered for duty with the National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics and have been assigned to this station. In order that we may properly utilize your services, we would appreciate your completing the enclosed application and bring it with you when reporting for duty along with a copy or photostat of your college transcript or a listing of your college courses showing the hours of credit and a grade obtained for each course. Please convert quarter hours or course credits to semester hours, or indicate the method of making such a conversion.

We, as yet, do not have the date you expect to report for duty. As soon as you know your reporting date, please advise us in order that we may make any necessary arrangements. If you have any questions prior to reporting for duty, please advise us.

We are sincerely looking forward to your joining our staff and trust you will have a pleasant tour of duty.”

Next, I asked Marian Russell, my bride to be, what she thought of living in the Mojave Desert for a few years. She responded, “Why don’t we drive up and look around?” That seemed a good idea because I could also make an appointment with Phil Walker to give him the material he asked for, and we could set a reporting date. The drive north was with a few surprises. The land to the south and east of Edwards Air Force base, the host of the High Speed Flight Station, certainly did not look like a desert. Thanks to irrigation, it was green with crops and trees on the many farms and ranches we drove past. On our last leg on the entry road to the base we could see some burned ruins of a ranch off to the right. It would turn out to be what was left of Pancho Barnes’ Happy Bottom Riding Club.

In the application form that Phil Walker had asked me to fill out, I described my work at the Rosemount Aeronautical Research Lab which included helping to operate supersonic and hypersonic wind tunnels. The work also included helping to reduce wind tunnel data to determine the stability derivatives of wind tunnel models. These mathematical descriptors of the motions and stability characteristics of airplanes were becoming essential to the work of the HSFS engineers, and upon reporting to the Station on 18 October 1956 I was told I would be going into the Airplane Stability and Control Branch.

Click here to go to Chapter 4 of the Experimental Research Airplanes and the Sound Barrier.