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Old October 6th 03, 05:15 PM
Ron
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Default Chuck Yeager-pitot tube

An interesting passage in General Yeagers book "Press ON".

" Just a ten inch steel shaft, once silvery, but now, after forty
years in various Yeager closets and attics, a kind of dull gray It
jumped out at me as something special.
It was the pitot tube off the Bell X-1
I picked it up and plopped down on the sofa. Normally, there's
nothing terribly special about a pitot tube, which is an instrument
that measures air pressure so that a pilot can find out how fast he's
flying. But according to the plaque it came mounted on, this
particular pitot tube had been on the nose of the X-1 on, as it said,.
"10-14-47." That's the day we reached Mach 1 . . .Murac Air Base . . .
That old plane part felt cool to the touch, but the memory it brought
back was of a little orange aircraft sitting on Rogers Dry Lake bed
and shimmering in the Mohave Desert heat . . . the Glamorous Glennis,
I'd called the X-1.
The General has a way with words too, doesn't he.

Ron