Page 70 - All About History - Issue 70-18

Neil Armstrong

“ One small

step for man…
”

Inside the personal journey of Neil Armstrong,

from flying ace to first man on the Moon

Written by Dr Gemma Lavender

N eil Armstrong was going down. Long before Apollo flying ace Chuck Yeager first broke the sound barrier in 1947,
and the cutting-edge in aeronautics were developed. However,
11 entered the history books, Armstrong was a
a test pilot’s life was never easy. On 22 March 1956, Armstrong
US
Navy
fighter pilot, serving in the Korean War.
was tasked
Just
officer in the
with flying a modified B-29 Superfortress, which was
21 years old, he
was youngest
his
VF-51 Screaming Eagles all-jet squadron. On
feet, one of the B-29’s four engines stopped
working.
first mission, his Grumman F9F-2B Panther was strafed by anti- to deploy a smaller Skyrocket plane in midair. But at 30,000
aircraft fire as he carried out a low-altitude bombing at 350 mph To maintain an airspeed suitable for deploying the Skyrocket,
(560 km/h). As he struggled to get his plane under control, his Armstrong and his co-pilot Stan Butchart had to enter a dive.
right wing clipped a pole just metres above the ground, ripping As the Skyrocket successfully blasted off, one of the blades
part of it clean off. Showing the nerves of steel that would from the broken engine’s propellor flew off and took out two of
define his illustrious career, Armstrong somehow managed to fly the B-29’s other engines. Armstrong still managed to land the
his wrecked jet back to safe territory before ejecting. 33,800 kg bomber with just the one remaining engine.
Born on 5 August 1930, in the small town of Wapakoneta, Armstrong was involved in numerous other dangerous
Ohio, Armstrong fell in love with airplanes at a young age. He incidents. One of his fellow test pilots, William J ‘Pete’
took his first flight with his father, Stephen, at the age of six, Knight, who came up through the Air Force, attributed this to
before getting his pilot’s licence as a teen. However, aeronautical ‘pilot-engineers’ such as Armstrong tending to fly in a more
engineering was his real passion – understanding how planes mechanical and less instinctive fashion. However, others thought
fly, and how to make them fly better. He studied at Purdue Armstrong’s ability to survive these disasters proved he was one
University in Indiana, before being called up to the US Navy. of the best test pilots in the business.
–
–
Three years, 78 combat missions, 121 hours in the air and five Certainly NASA as it was called by 1958 thought so. But
medals later, Armstrong retired from active service, completed they still had a requirement that you had to be a military test
his university degree, and began a new career as a test flight pilot to become a NASA astronaut. Since he had left the navy,
pilot. Armstrong was sent to the famous Edwards Air Force Base Armstrong was now a civilian. He was therefore ineligible to
in California. Home to the High-Speed Flight Station, this was be part of the ‘Mercury 7’ team, which headed up the United
operated by the National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics State’s first space mission. However, in 1962, everything
(NACA), the precursor to NASA. This desert base was where changed for Armstrong, for better and for worse.
Armstrong had married his first
Neil Armstrong wife, Janet, in 1956 and together
(left) flies an F9F-2 they had three children – Eric,
Panther over Korea
Karen and Mark. However, tragedy
struck when two-year-old Karen,
who her father nicknamed ‘Muffy’,
was discovered to have a malignant
tumour in the middle part of her
brain stem. The radiation and cobalt
therapy treatment was too much for
the little girl, and terribly weakened
by the illness and the attempts to
cure it, she caught pneumonia and
died in January 1962.

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