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Joseph A. Walker flew the world's first two spaceplane flights in 1963, thereby becoming the United States' seventh astronaut. Walker was a Captain in the United States Air Force, an American World War II pilot, an experimental physicist, a NASA test pilot, and a member of the U.S. Air Force Man In Space Soonest spaceflight program. His two X-15 experimental rocket aircraft flights in 1963 that exceeded the Kármán line – the altitude of 100 kilometers, generally considered to mark the threshold of outer space, qualified him as an astronaut under the rules of the U.S. Air Force and the Féd��ration Aéronautique Internationale (FAI).

Born Joseph Albert Walker on February 20, 1921 in Washington, Pennsylvania and died on June 8, 1966 in Barstow, California when his F-104N Starfighter chase aircraft collided with a North American XB-70 Valkyrie. He was 45.

(Photo:) Walker's F-104 tumbles in flames following the midair collision with the XB-70 62-0207 on June 8, 1966.

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Joe Walker

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RIP, Chuck Yeager February 13, 1923 – December 7, 2020)

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The anniversary of Yeager’s flight to break the sound barrier, October 14, 1947.

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I just completed “Chasing the Demon”, by Dan Hampton.  Overall, I thought it was decent enough.  I particularly enjoyed the parts about some of the Luftwaffe’s early work on jets and rockets. 

I think it would have been better if Mr. Hampton had a bit more focus on the X1 program itself.  For about two-thirds of the book, he covers some early flight history and some overview of WWII (although he tries to keep the focus on the test pilots later featured in the flight testing), which seem to take away from what I wanted to read about in greater detail. 

It’s not a bad read.  He loves Jack Ridley (for good reasons), and doesn’t seem to care much for Yeager.  Further, he really wants to give more credit to the theory that the XP-86 tests were the first to go supersonic.  So I was a little unsure about his straying into that area. 

But I enjoyed the X-1 part of the book, and it’s a quick read.  But with a much tighter focus on the X-1 development, I think it would have been much better.

After reading, I remembered that the X-1 loading pit was still around, so spending some time on Google Maps, I think I found it in the parking lot. 

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