
Five NACA engineers, headed by Walt Williams, arrived at Muroc Army Airfield (now Edwards Air Force Base in California) about this date from Langley Memorial Aeronautical Laboratory, Virginia, to prepare for X-1 supersonic research flights in the joint NACA-Army Air Forces program. This was the first NACA presence established at the Mojave Desert site. (Note: Some sources report the arrival of 13 individuals on Sept. 30, but an early chronology shows only the original five, with a total of 13 NACA people not present at Muroc until December.)
Credits: NASA

Initially a satellite of the NACA’s Langley Memorial Aeronautical Laboratory, the NACA Muroc Flight Test Unit received permanent status from Hugh L. Dryden, the NACA’s director of Research, with Walt Williams as chief.
Credits: NASA

As a result of the X-1’s supersonic flight, the National Aviation Association awarded it the 1948 Collier Trophy, to be shared by the three main participants in the program. Honored at the White House by President Harry S. Truman were Lawrence “Larry” Bell for Bell Aircraft, Capt. Charles “Chuck” Yeager for piloting the flights, and John Stack of NACA for the NACA contributions.
Credits: NASA

The Bell Aircraft Corporation X-1-3 is pictured with two of the NACA pilots that flew it, Robert Champine, left, and Herbert Hoover. Champine made 13 flights in the X-1, plus nine in the D-558-I and 12 in the D-558-II. Hoover made 14 flights in the X-1. On March 10, 1948, Hoover reached Mach 1.065, becoming the first NACA (civilian) pilot to fly faster than the speed of sound.
Credits: NASA

The Douglas D-558-I No. 2 Skystreak (the “Crimson Test tube” until it was repainted white) is pictured with test pilot Eugene May (Douglas Aircraft Company), left, and the NACA research pilot Howard Lilly. On May 3, 1948, Lilly took off and retracted the landing gear when the engine compressor suddenly broke apart. Fragments severed the airplane’s control cables and Lilly could not escape (there was no ejection seat) before the D-558-I crashed. One of the roads into what is now NASA Armstrong is named for Lilly, the first NACA research pilot killed in the line of duty.
Credits: NASA

A 1953 photo of some of the research aircraft at the NACA High-Speed Flight Research Station. At the center is the X-3, and clockwise from left are the X-1A, the third D-558-I, XF-92A, X-5, D-558-II, and X-4.
Credits: NASA

Chuck Yeager standing next the X-1 research plane that broke the sound barrier Oct. 14, 1947. Today the aircraft hangs in the Smithsonian Air and Space Museum in Washington.
Credits: U.S. Air Force Test Center History Office

This NACA High-Speed Flight Research Station photograph of the Bell X-5 was taken at Edwards Air Force Base in the mid 1950s. The photograph shows the aircraft in flight with the wings swept back.
Credits: NASA

This NACA High-Speed Flight Research Station photograph of the X-5 was taken at the South Base on Edwards Air Force Base. The multiple exposure illustrates the X-5’s variable swept wing capability. It was the first aircraft whose wing sweep could be so adjusted in flight, something ideal for high-speed flight.
Credits: NASA

On Nov. 20, 1953, Scott Crossfield piloted the rocket-powered D-558-2 Skyrocket to Mach 2.005, the first person to fly twice the speed of sound. Among the preparations for the flight, the team cold soaked the water/alcohol propellant mixture, enabling them to add another 15 gallons of propellant for a slightly longer burn. The picture shows Crossfield being interviewed by camera news crews. Because news media were not invited to the record attempt, this was done for their benefit after the fact.
Credits: NASA

Personnel of the NACA High-Speed Flight Station gathered for a group photo in front of the station’s new headquarters, Building 4800, on Aug. 12, 1954. The station and its complement of about 250 personnel had moved just six weeks earlier from cramped quarters in a small hangar at what is now South Base at Edwards Air Force Base, to its new facility just north of the new main base, on the edge of Rogers Dry Lake. The new complex consisted of a central office building and two adjoining hangars, along with a few appurtenant structures. This became the nucleus of today’s NASA Armstrong.
Credits: NASA
