High Jump

We spent a hot Thursday afternoon at the free and air-conditioned National Museum of the Air Force. In the picture above, Nathan and Luke are in the cockpit of an F-4. My dad flew in the backseat of the RF-4 as a navigator, so everyone was very proud to sit there (except Anna and Grace, who didn't want to descend into the deep, dark cavity which was the seat, LOL).

Although I have been to the Air Force Museum a number of times, I haven't been very many times the past few years. I have never gotten around to visiting the Cold War Gallery or the Missle Silo, which were new additions since my last trip through. Nathan and Luke were brimming with enthusiasm, since they went to an aerospace camp at the AF Museum last summer and had gotten some detailed tours, and they really wanted us to visit these new areas.

When we went upstairs to the catwalk around the missle silo, I was curious about this display with a stuffed dummy and a tent-like thing, which you can see above. The tent thing has the words, "The highest step in the world" written on that yellow space under the doorway. It turned out that this display was commemorating Operation Excelsior , which, in the words of Wikipedia,

was a series of high-altitude parachute jumps made by Colonel (then Captain) Joseph Kittinger of the United States Air Force (USAF) in 1959 and 1960 to test the Beaupre multi-stage parachute system. In one of these jumps Kittinger set world records for the highest parachute jump, the longest parachute drogue fall and the fastest speed by a human through the atmosphere, all of which still stand.

Capt. Kittinger ascended 3 times in that flimsy little gondola thing--up to 76, 400 feet the first time, then to 74, 700 feet the second time, and all the way up to 102,800 feet the third and final time. And each time he JUMPED OUT. The last time he fell for 4 minutes and 36 seconds using only a small stablizer parachute so he wouldn't go into a fatal spin. His main chute opened at 17,500 feet, and he landed in New Mexico. The entire descent took 13 minutes and 45 seconds.

Well. This is certainly the stuff of nightmares for this heights-challenged person! I simply can't even fathom doing something like this, and frankly I was a little dizzy after reading the display, LOL. They had a camera in the gondola, so you can also see what Capt. Kittinger saw as he stepped off his high step. Acckkkkkk! I can't look anymore . . . .

I'mmmmm falllllllinnnnnnggggg . . . . That's it--I'm for sure having bad dreams tonight!