The Crowd Pleasers by Pete Fusco

Author:Pete Fusco
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781510728202
Publisher: Skyhorse Publishing
Published: 2017-12-07T05:00:00+00:00

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ENTER THE JETS

BREAKING the sound barrier was once an airshow act, especially in England, where spectators could not get enough sonic booms or, “bangs,” as they were called. British jet fighters of the late 1940s and early 1950s, while not quite capable of the feat in level flight, accomplished it by beginning from a high altitude, pointing the nose almost straight down, pushing the throttle to the stops, leveling off low, and flying past the grandstands at speeds either approaching or breaking the sound barrier. Sonic boom or not, the jets made plenty of noise. It was a show highlight and crowd pleaser.

Except on September 6, 1952, at the annual Farnborough Airshow in England, when the prototype de Havilland DH-110 Sea Vixen, a twin-engine, two-seat jet fighter flown by British test pilot John Derry, thirty-one, and his watch pilot, Tony Richards, twenty-four, disintegrated in flight. Besides the two pilots, falling debris killed thirty people and injured sixty-three.

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