A great scene - except it never really happened!
I had my first doubts about Wolfe's account when I discovered that Chalmers "Slick" Goodlin was a Pittsburgh area native, born in nearby Greensburg on January 2nd, 1923 and raised just down the road in New Alexandria, where he learned to fly as a teen (and legend has it he would sometimes deliver newspapers from the open cockpit of a plane). A real Pittsburgher wouldn't think twice about squeezing their employer for every nickel they could get, but something didn't ring true about the rest of the story: Goodlin had already agreed to make the flight - a Pittsburgher would sooner root for the Browns than back out of a deal!
In late 1940 with WWII well underway in Europe and the U.S. still on the sidelines, a very young Chalmers Goodlin headed north to join the Royal Canadian Air Force in hopes of making it into combat over England. Goodlin joined the RCAF on his 18th birthday, picked up the nickname "Slick" for his flying skills and made his way to England as a pilot instructor. In late 1942, well after Pearl Harbor, the Navy somehow discovered a U.S. citizen flying for the Canadians in England, and asked him to return to the U.S. to train as a test pilot. Goodlin ended up in Florida flight testing most every plane the Navy flew - and thinking being away from the action wasn't as much fun as he had thought.
And then in December of 1943, in the middle of the biggest war ever, with less than 1 year of service, Goodlin was somehow released from the Navy to become a test pilot for Bell Aircraft. Exactly how that happened is open to speculation, but it probably had a lot to do with Larry Bell.
Bell had worked his way up through the Martin and Consolidated aircraft companies, eventually becoming a vice president. In 1935 Consolidated decided to relocate from Buffalo, New York to California, and Bell took the opportunity to start his own company in New York. Bell knew lots of rich and powerful people, including General Hap Arnold - commander of the US Army Air Force (USAAF) during WWII. Arnold had seen the Gloster Meteor flying in Britian and was convinced that jets were the future of air warfare; he gave Larry Bell the job of building the first US jet and by late 1942 it was flying out of a tiny airfield in the California desert - a place that would someday be Edwards Air Force Base. Which is a long way of saying that if Larry Bell needed a test pilot in 1943, he would have no problem springing one from the Navy.
Fast forward to 1946 and Goodlin was one of a very few test pilots at Bell Aircraft, second only to Jack Woolams. Bell had a contract to build the XS-1 - a rocket powered research plane designed to break the sound barrier - in a joint project between the civilian National Advisory Council for Aeronautics (NACA) and the US Army Air Force.
The project quickly become a den of infighting. The NACA saw it as a giant science experiment; they had the planes wired with sensors and planned to generate mountains of incremental data over dozens of flights. Bell Aircraft was expecting to earn a pile of money for performing the test flights. And the USAAF, facing massive post-war budget cuts, just wanted to take over the flying as quickly as possible.
Then while the project was just starting, Jack Woolams crashed his P-39 air racer into Lake Ontario at 400+ mph while preparing for the Cleveland Air Races. Overnight, 24 year old Chalmers Goodlin became the lead test pilot for the XS-1, making a handshake deal with Larry Bell to take over Woolams contract, which included a hefty bonus for breaking the sound barrier. Its not clear how much the bonus actually was; the often quoted $150,000 figure may have included other flying Woolams was to perform - and of course there was a chance Goodlin might not live to collect it. But still it was a lot of money for 1947.
Over the next 8 months, Goodlin would make 26 flights in the two XS-1s, including the first powered flights, eventually pushing out to mach 0.8 in the spring of 1947. And then things got really interesting. In the midst of the constant wrangling over how many test flights Bell would perform, in July of 1947 the USAAF became the US Air Force. By August, Goodlin was out and Yeager was making his first flight in the XS-1. You can draw your own conclusions, but here are mine: having Air Force personnel break the sound barrier became an obvious way to give a bit of credibility to the fledgling service, and help establish the careers of the senior officers running the project. Hap Arnold had retired in 1946, greatly reducing Larry Bell's ability to pull strings, and the hefty bonus promised to Goodlin became a handy excuse for canceling Bell's contract. Even if Goodlin had offered to fly for free he wasn't getting the flight.
So if you see an X-1 on a contest table without the "Glamorous Glennis" decal take a closer look; it might not be a mistake!
Wow, listening to John Lear talk about slick on Coast to Coast AM. RIP Slick, YOU knew who "the best test pilot ever was." The other guy, the general, was great but you were better. :-)
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ReplyDeleteLove my great uncle! He's the biggest inspiration to me. Rip uncle Slick you're why im in aviation today.
ReplyDeleteAccording to stories Chalmers (NO the family did not call him Chal) told my Mom and Dad, he and his flight buddies actually did steal the Bell, in a moment of defiance,,the night before the Yeager flight. Did break the barrier. Smithsonian agrees with this info... at least when I last visited in the late eighties. Chubby was very very charismatic. His photo as a young man working out of The Shack in the desert was on the cover of LOOK Magazine. He was featured with two starletts. I still have a copy of the magazine cover.
ReplyDeleteThe book and movie disparaging Slick were wrong on so many levels. Slick was a good man, a great pilot, and a gentleman. His involvement in aviation was of the purest intentioned and much of his life has been spent fighting a system that was blind to changes in aeronautical designs, that could and would have made the present day passenger jet service a great deal safer than it is today… Chalmers Goodlin fought against putting profit before safety and for the lives of people. Ye old affect of the military/civilian industrial complex.
ReplyDeleteAs far as the Bell X-1 went, the truth was know where in sight for the people involved in film and book that demeaned Slick. The truth of the mater was that the USAF was the less than honorable villain leading to Yeager's taking the controls of the X-1. The hold up regarding contractual agreement was when the USAF refused to honor their contract with Slick if he was killed testing the X-1. This was a breach of contract used to making Yeager their boy. The way I look at it is this; the hard work by so many, including Slick, was finished. Yeager broke the sound barrier when told it was safe to do so. Bravo Mr. Yeager! But, knowing the man as I learned to from my father, Slick Goodlin; when Slick tells you after flying 26 flights in the Bell X-1, that all the issues within the X-1 plane had been worked out, and a barrier run should be next, basically saying in affect, "Ok it's safe to go", any man would have slept a hole bunch easer the night before making that flight, just like Mr. Yeager did. Every pilot knows the confidence I'm talking about. It's the confidence you get when your instructor says, "Ok your ready, take it around the patch" Slick Goodlin did just that. For Mr. Yeager, standing upon shoulders like that, I always wondered, why the interviews with Yeager about the sound barrier, he never acknowledged Chalmers Goodlin. Folks, I know which one of these men I'd rather have teach me to fly. Although I was, nine or ten the last time I saw him, his friendship with my father and mother went back to dad's RCAF service in England. I do know that he was one of the two men my father said were the best pilots he had ever flown with, Holly Hills and Slick Goodlin. These guys were the best of the best at many things. Goodlin was simply a giant.
My mother went with Holly Hills to see Slick just prior to his death. Slick's story as a champion of air safety, his relationship with a man named Bernoulli and the battles for the safety of us all, is the real story few people have heard. It's a story I wish we were all aware of, and long ago. If you're interested in a real conspiracy story involving safety within the airline industry, look no further. Slick believed in making a buck, but not at the expense of life. His battles were with those not chairing his ethic, those captains of industry, of the airline and the manufacture ring. This biased bunch, while ignoring the empirical data encompassed within the Bernoulli principles, blocked manufacturers from aircraft design changes that would have revolutionized flight safety. Slick fought alone against these men and their control of the air industry. We have all lost a great man and advocate for safety in air travel by the death of this champion.
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Mr Hinn, thank you for the comments! I have researched Mr. Goodlin's life as much as possible on the internet, I had always planned a part 2 and 3 to tell the story of Slick's time in the middle east and Africa, and his involvement with Burnelli. If you have any information not on the internet I'd love to talk - you can reach me via email at dnschmtz@gmail.com
DeleteThe Niagara Aerospace Museum is in the process of researching Chalmers "Slick" Goodlin's career at Bell Aircraft and the XS-1 project for the sake of dispelling the "$150,000 demand" once and for all. Preliminary information/research confirms what Don has found. Essentially we believe the disparaging remarks regarding Goodlin are false.
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