Speaker 1: This is Colonel Joe Kenninger, and I'm talking today with
Speaker 1: the Doctor Sky from the teen Talknetwork dot Com. And
Speaker 1: I'm talking about my highlitude parachute work that I did
Speaker 1: back in fifty nine and sixty. I'm talking talking Doctor
Speaker 1: Sky about my combat experience and just aviation in general.
Speaker 2: Welcome to The Doctor Sky Show, heard proudly here on
Speaker 2: the teen Talknetwork radio network, teen Talknetwork dot Com at
Speaker 2: our flagship radio station k FNX and Phoenix, Arizona. That
Speaker 2: is News Talk eleven hundred, the fifty thousand watt powerhouse
Speaker 2: up the desert Southwest. The Doctor Sky Show concerns itself
Speaker 2: with subject matter from the realms of astronomy, space, aviation,
Speaker 2: and weather. We have a return guest here on The
Speaker 2: Doctor Sky Show and teen Talk Network. We're proud to
Speaker 2: announce the arrival and return of a retired Air Force
Speaker 2: Colonel Joe Kittinger. Joe, welcome to the program.
Speaker 1: Well, thank you for inviting me back on your show.
Speaker 2: Well, thank you very much, And always it's a privilege
Speaker 2: and honor to speak to someone who's talked to talk
Speaker 2: and then walked it, and certainly the amazing things that
Speaker 2: you've done in service of our country. But Joe, as
Speaker 2: we said, welcome back, we'd like to just get you
Speaker 2: to start off, for maybe some people that are new
Speaker 2: to hearing your voice here on the show, tell us
Speaker 2: a little bit about yourself and how you got started
Speaker 2: in the United States military.
Speaker 1: Well, I always wanted to be an aviator. My earliest
Speaker 1: recollection was building airplanes and thinking about flying airplanes. And
Speaker 1: it was my goal that I set early on in
Speaker 1: my life, and I worked diligently towards that, and that
Speaker 1: was my field of dreams, was sitting there thinking about
Speaker 1: flying airplanes. And one day my father reminded me, he said,
Speaker 1: so you can dream all you want to, but you've
Speaker 1: got to work hard to accomplish what you want. And
Speaker 1: that's a good lesson I think today that you know
Speaker 1: you can dream, but the way you get success.
Speaker 2: Is hard work. That's absolutely right. And again, welcoming you
Speaker 2: back to the teen Tucknetwork dot Com here on the
Speaker 2: Doctor Sky Show. Officially, as I quote from your bio,
Speaker 2: you're in a military service back in March of nineteen
Speaker 2: forty nine as an aviation cadet. And then we understand
Speaker 2: as you were commissioned as a second lieutenant you spend
Speaker 2: some time out in that beautiful part of the Southwest
Speaker 2: known as Las Vegas. Correct.
Speaker 1: Yes, that's where I flew the P fifty one and
Speaker 1: got my wings, and then I went from there to Germany.
Speaker 2: I see, and also tell us a little bit more
Speaker 2: the P fifty one for maybe some of the younger
Speaker 2: listeners on the show. This is one of America's great
Speaker 2: propeller aircraft of what World War two vintage and the
Speaker 2: Korean War.
Speaker 1: Yes, it was a fabulous airplane, doctor Sky. It was
Speaker 1: a fabulous airplane. It had a great big twelve cylinder
Speaker 1: in line engine and you could always tell a P
Speaker 1: fifty one flying over. It had a very distinctly sound.
Speaker 1: That engine just purred, and you could you could where
Speaker 1: I am if I hear a P fifty one, this guy,
Speaker 1: I know it's a fifty one because it has a
Speaker 1: distinct sound to it. And it was a fabulous airplane
Speaker 1: to fly, just just a ball to fly.
Speaker 2: Well, many folks may not know this, but we see
Speaker 2: these type aircraft in regular competition at places like am
Speaker 2: I correct, the Reno Air Racism among other places.
Speaker 1: Yes, they're always at Reno and they they they're always
Speaker 1: in the competition somewhere. If they're not winning, they're very
Speaker 1: close to it.
Speaker 2: All that's great stuff, and we've seen p fifty ones
Speaker 2: out here in Arizona, where our program hails from. I'm
Speaker 2: sure you're familiar with an organization known as the Commemorative
Speaker 2: Air Force, and they have that number.
Speaker 1: Of very famous organizations, wonderful people there.
Speaker 2: As we move on, I was wondering if you could
Speaker 2: just talk to us about children and education, because Colonel,
Speaker 2: as you know, you're inspiring right now, many many young
Speaker 2: minds out there to go into the discipline of either
Speaker 2: the military or to become a pot and what would
Speaker 2: you tell them current in our second interview about how
Speaker 2: they can get involved in aerospace.
Speaker 1: Well, aerospace, first of all, doctor Skut is a wonderful profession.
Speaker 1: I've been flying airplanes now for over fifty two years
Speaker 1: and I love it. It's a wonderful profession and made
Speaker 1: up of folks that are that are people that you
Speaker 1: really like to be associated with. The key to it
Speaker 1: is to do your study, get your degree. If you
Speaker 1: can dedicate yourself to being the best that you can be,
Speaker 1: and that's the secret to success in any event, In
Speaker 1: any event and any profession. It's always do the best
Speaker 1: you can do and be the best that you can
Speaker 1: And I just I thoroughly enjoy the Air Force it was,
Speaker 1: but you know, not everybody can be an aviator. It
Speaker 1: takes lots of folks to make airplanes fly. It takes
Speaker 1: crew chief and it takes supply people. I mean, you know,
Speaker 1: the glamory part is the flying of the airplane, but
Speaker 1: it takes twice as many people to get the airplanes
Speaker 1: in the sky and to keep them there. So there's
Speaker 1: a great professions also and the mechanics and in the
Speaker 1: supply and the administration and aviation so well, that's great advice.
Speaker 2: And a recent interview that I had here on teen
Speaker 2: Talk Network with the Doctor Sky Show was one of
Speaker 2: the majors who's involved in Junior r OTC. And I
Speaker 2: think that's awesome, Colonel Joe, that there's so many young
Speaker 2: people in the high school level now that are getting
Speaker 2: exposure to a potential military career in the Air Force
Speaker 2: or learning all about aviation as you speak so well.
Speaker 1: Of Yes, that CAP program is a wonderful program, and
Speaker 1: that's the entry into aviation that's available for all the
Speaker 1: people in high school and that's a great way to
Speaker 1: get a leg up on the profession.
Speaker 2: Let's move if we can to your time that you
Speaker 2: spent out at that very interesting place on the map,
Speaker 2: southern New Mexico, Holloman Air Force Base, White Sands area
Speaker 2: of New Mexico. And I understand that throughout your time
Speaker 2: there you had an affiliation with a fantastic individual, doctor
Speaker 2: John Stapp, who also wrote as you know, and I
Speaker 2: could explain a little more about the rockets led tests
Speaker 2: that led up to what we know today as jet fighters.
Speaker 1: Well, doctor Stapp was a visionary. He was a man
Speaker 1: that knew the way that the Air Force should be
Speaker 1: going on research in regards to protecting the people for
Speaker 1: escape ni altitude from aircraft. He also knew we were
Speaker 1: going to go into space, and he was responsled for
Speaker 1: some of the very initial work that we did on
Speaker 1: space research. For example, the first zero gravity experiments in
Speaker 1: this country was done as a result of doctor Stapp
Speaker 1: right there at Holloman Air Force Base. He was just
Speaker 1: he was a fabulous man and a great visionary, and
Speaker 1: that contributed so much to our country and so much
Speaker 1: to our Air Force. I'll give you one quick dialogue here,
Speaker 1: Doctor scuy Sure. He was stationed at originally at Edward's
Speaker 1: Air Force Base, and the Air Force were losing more
Speaker 1: people to car accident. They were losing more people crashes
Speaker 1: in cars that were on airplanes. So doctor Stapp started
Speaker 1: a program on crash protection and vehicles and he was
Speaker 1: one of the very first people who came up with
Speaker 1: research on lap belt safety belts and showed arnesses. He
Speaker 1: was really the originator in this country on the research
Speaker 1: to start that aspect of protecting. Of course, there's been
Speaker 1: probably a million people saved in vehicles as a result
Speaker 1: of what doctor Stapp did. And an association with that
Speaker 1: was the deceleration rapid deceleration, and he did this by
Speaker 1: a series of experiments on sleds rock propelled sleds. And
Speaker 1: that's where I first met him because I made the
Speaker 1: aerial photographs of him when he made his sled run
Speaker 1: this seven hundred and fourteen miles an hour.
Speaker 2: That's an incredible speed and if I'm correct, there's a
Speaker 2: photograph of you flying over him at the same time
Speaker 2: his rocket sled as wall almost at full power, as
Speaker 2: if there was some kind of mythological or race going on.
Speaker 2: Is that's so accurate.
Speaker 1: That's very accrid. But the races I couldn't do Rey good.
Speaker 1: He could go faster than I could. Meyer plane was
Speaker 1: limited to about six d and five hundred and fifty
Speaker 1: and he was doing over six hundred miles an hour.
Speaker 2: Well, the interesting part about this kernel is, as you
Speaker 2: were telling us that they did these interesting deceleration tests.
Speaker 1: So what happens.
Speaker 2: He's at max speed and then he reduces it down
Speaker 2: to zero in a very short matter of times, right.
Speaker 1: Oh, just a few just a few feet. Really, he
Speaker 1: went from zero to six hundred and fourteen miles an
Speaker 1: hour and stopped in less than thirty five hundred feet
Speaker 1: from that credible. The total experiment, he pulled minus forty
Speaker 1: one gs, doctor Sky, which was considered the physiological limit
Speaker 1: to deceleration. And it's it's still a milestone today. That
Speaker 1: is phenomenal when you think about minus forty one g, Well,
Speaker 1: that's like running into a brick. Wallet's at you know,
Speaker 1: one hundred miles an hour.
Speaker 2: Absolutely, and as you say, I understand he suffered some
Speaker 2: temporary which he might not have known. It was temporary
Speaker 2: damage to the blood dustles of his eyes.
Speaker 1: If I'm correct, he certainly did he looked like he
Speaker 1: was just beat up. And that's the reason why I
Speaker 1: always said he was a bravest man that I ever met,
Speaker 1: because he knew physiologically everything was going to happen to him.
Speaker 1: He knew the risk he was taking, but he did
Speaker 1: it because science dictated that he needed this information. The
Speaker 1: Air Force needs this information. And he's the bravest man
Speaker 1: that I ever met in my life. And I've known
Speaker 1: some great aviators and some very brave men, but he
Speaker 1: by far as the bravest man that I ever met.
Speaker 2: If you're just joining us, we are having an exclusive
Speaker 2: interview today, proudly so with the retired Air Force Colonel
Speaker 2: Joe Kittinger, Junior, who was talking to us about not
Speaker 2: only his career in the military and about some fascinating
Speaker 2: things ladies and gentlemen that will just blow your mind.
Speaker 2: So recollecting some of the good reasons why young people
Speaker 2: who listened to teen Talknetwork dot com should of course
Speaker 2: look at the US military as a proud and rightful career.
Speaker 2: And also we're heard here on KFNX, but his news
Speaker 2: Talk eleven hundred, the fifty thousand watt Powerhouse of the
Speaker 2: Desert Southwest Colonel Kittinger, if you could just tell us
Speaker 2: you also have a great fascination and also part of
Speaker 2: us history in manned ballooning, and if you could just
Speaker 2: tell us what got you involved in that, say, back
Speaker 2: in the nineteen.
Speaker 1: Fifties, Well, there was research that needed to be done
Speaker 1: that doctor Staff had identified, and the only way we
Speaker 1: could do it was go up in a balloon. And
Speaker 1: there was no aircraft that could take us up there.
Speaker 1: There was no spacecraft that could take us up there,
Speaker 1: and the only way we could get those high altitudes
Speaker 1: was a balloon vehicle. And I did actually five high
Speaker 1: altitude balloon flights from the lowest was seventy four thousand
Speaker 1: feet in the highest was one hundred and three thousand
Speaker 1: feet and it was really we didn't had an airplane.
Speaker 1: It'd been much simpler, but we didn't have it, so
Speaker 1: we had to use balloon vehicles. I made one flight
Speaker 1: nineteen fifty seven and I pressurized gondola to look at
Speaker 1: how to do a spaceflight, the auction composition, the physological
Speaker 1: monitoring devices, how to train, how to select astronauts. All
Speaker 1: of these were things that we did back in nineteen
Speaker 1: fifty seven using balloon vehicles at hilitude. Then I made
Speaker 1: three high alitude parachute jumps, and once again this was
Speaker 1: to design to investigate protection of man in the space
Speaker 1: environment and how to provide a meaning to escape from
Speaker 1: very high altitude. Once again research objectives that doctor staff identified,
Speaker 1: and once again we used balloons. Then my final balloon
Speaker 1: flight was in nineteen sixty two with an astronomer and
Speaker 1: a telescope and one above the Iris atmosphere, looked at
Speaker 1: stars and planets without the turns and the dust and
Speaker 1: haze of our atmosphere.
Speaker 2: And that flight is, of course the December thirteen, fourteenth,
Speaker 2: nineteen sixty two flight with astronomer William White of China Lake, California.
Speaker 1: If I'm correct, yes, sir, and you've done your homework,
Speaker 1: doctor skuy Well, we.
Speaker 2: Certainly like to keep on the cutting edge of this.
Speaker 2: And again I'm looking a bit briefly that has excuse
Speaker 2: me much about your background. But it's a privilege and
Speaker 2: honor here to have our very special guest here on
Speaker 2: teen talknetwork dot com. That's retired Air Force Colonel Joe Kittinger,
Speaker 2: who's going to tell us Joe Kittinger Junior, who's going
Speaker 2: to tell us more about a most amazing flight that
Speaker 2: he made back on the historic date of August sixteenth,
Speaker 2: nineteen sixty. And I say take it away, Colonel Will
Speaker 2: because this story, ladies and gentlemen, about what you're about
Speaker 2: to hear is most amazing.
Speaker 1: Well, as I put it out, doctor Stapp was responsible
Speaker 1: for our programmed and we had never put a man
Speaker 1: in a space before we knew we were going to
Speaker 1: go into space, and the man had to get outside
Speaker 1: of the spacecraft, and the man would have work to
Speaker 1: do outside of spacecraft. Ever done it, We had never
Speaker 1: actually done it except in an altitude chamber. And by
Speaker 1: the same token, we were having difficulties on providing means
Speaker 1: we escaped from very altitudes. And so both of these
Speaker 1: were objectives. First of all, how to protect a man
Speaker 1: in the space environment, and then second of all, how
Speaker 1: to provide a means of we escape for verial alitudes. Well,
Speaker 1: I made one hundred flights and altitude chambers. Had a
Speaker 1: great team of civilians and military and en list of
Speaker 1: personnel and officers, and we worked for about a year
Speaker 1: and a half putting this program together in a testing equipment,
Speaker 1: and I made three actually made three parachute jumps. One
Speaker 1: was in November of nineteen fifty nine, one was in
Speaker 1: December of nineteen fifty nine, and then in August of
Speaker 1: nineteen sixteen, some forty four years ago. Now it's important
Speaker 1: for me to tell you that we didn't do this
Speaker 1: to set records. We did this to gather information. We
Speaker 1: didn't do it to set a new record. We did
Speaker 1: it to gather information. And I made this jump on
Speaker 1: the sixteenth of August. It took about an hour and
Speaker 1: a half to get up there. I was in an
Speaker 1: open gondola, and as I passed through forty thousand feet,
Speaker 1: I detected that my pressures to glove on my right
Speaker 1: hand was not working. But I didn't tell the people
Speaker 1: on the ground because I knew that they would probably
Speaker 1: have to cancel out the task if I told them
Speaker 1: I had.
Speaker 2: This problem, so you want to have to continue the mission.
Speaker 1: So I didn't share this problem with them because I
Speaker 1: felt it was very important that we get the test done.
Speaker 1: It took about an hour and a half to get
Speaker 1: up to our two one hundred and three thousand feet,
Speaker 1: and once I got there, I addressed for about eleven
Speaker 1: minutes while the gondola got in the exact spot for
Speaker 1: the jump, and then they said, well, you're right over
Speaker 1: the position. I had forty six items to do on
Speaker 1: my checklist get before I could separate from the gondola.
Speaker 1: I started my checklist. I'd got everything completed. I stood up,
Speaker 1: I said a solid prayer. I pushed the final button
Speaker 1: to start the cameras working, and I jumped. And as
Speaker 1: I jumped, I rolled over my back and I looked
Speaker 1: up and the blue was shooting in the space like
Speaker 1: a rocket, and I said, gosh, I can't believe this,
Speaker 1: And all of a sudden I realized that the blue
Speaker 1: was standing still and I was going down at a
Speaker 1: fantastic read of speed. I had about about ninety thousand feet.
Speaker 1: I reached seven hundred and fourteen miles an hour, incredible,
Speaker 1: which was supersonic. But the pressure their course is very low.
Speaker 1: It's about five millimeters of pressure, which is almost a
Speaker 1: complete vacuum. So you're going extremely fast, true air speed.
Speaker 1: But from then on, as the density of the air increases,
Speaker 1: you slowed down. So from ninety thousand feet on I
Speaker 1: kept slowing down constantly all the way down as the
Speaker 1: density of the atmosphere increased, And after four minutes and
Speaker 1: thirty six seconds the parachute opened and I was elated
Speaker 1: because we had demonstrated that we could provide a means
Speaker 1: of escape. And the great thing, Doctor Sky, is that
Speaker 1: today that the escape systems that are used today in
Speaker 1: aircraft are the result of the work that we did
Speaker 1: back in nineteen sixty the drag formulists use today, the
Speaker 1: technique of escape that we use is still being used today.
Speaker 1: Not only a boy our Air Force, but also the
Speaker 1: Russian Air Force has exactly the same system that we
Speaker 1: devised back some forty four years ago.
Speaker 2: Well, Colonel, this is an amazing story as we're listening
Speaker 2: to this live here on teen talknetwork dot com to tape.
Speaker 2: But I want to mention something, colonel, or ask you,
Speaker 2: I should say, what is from a human side, what
Speaker 2: does this feeling like to be the only person, Todate
Speaker 2: who's jumped not only from that record altitude, but what's
Speaker 2: it simply like when you take that leap of faith
Speaker 2: as we call it, as you call it, out of
Speaker 2: the gondola. What does it feel like to go super
Speaker 2: sonic without the aid of an aircraft?
Speaker 1: Well, it was, of course I didn't detect it. It
Speaker 1: was it happened so insidiously that I could not detect
Speaker 1: it myself. Uh the uh the uh dancy, there's is
Speaker 1: such and this my triuvilosity was such that I didn't
Speaker 1: detect it. But I knew I was going fast. There
Speaker 1: wasn't no doubt about that, because I could see that
Speaker 1: balloon firing into space. But otherwise you would have no
Speaker 1: way of knowing how fast you're going because there's no
Speaker 1: there's no visual reference. I had an al timinum to
Speaker 1: stop watch, and I had a great interest in that,
Speaker 1: and I kept watching my al Timinus stop watch all
Speaker 1: the way down because I was monitoring my progress as
Speaker 1: I was descending. And of course the further I fell,
Speaker 1: the safer it was, because the space is very hostile.
Speaker 1: Without a pressure suit, you die very quickly, and so
Speaker 1: your whole life is putting up on their pressures suite working.
Speaker 2: So as you're descending, do you hear anything there in
Speaker 2: this phase? Or is it pretty?
Speaker 1: So you've got a helmet on and you're breathing in
Speaker 1: this helmet, and actually you can't hear a thing except
Speaker 1: your own breath in the helmet.
Speaker 2: Now, there are people that have asked this question, and
Speaker 2: we need to clarify this. Some have stated, well, if
Speaker 2: he went supersonic, why didn't he burn up? And I
Speaker 2: think the simple answer is what the atmosphere is so
Speaker 2: thin at that height that it's not enough to set
Speaker 2: you ablaze. Correct.
Speaker 1: Well, no, really, the real thing is the speed You
Speaker 1: have to be doing a mock three before you start
Speaker 1: getting a problem of heat. And I was at mock one.
Speaker 1: Heat doesn't get to be an effort. Above MOK two
Speaker 1: you'd start getting some heat problem, but I was not.
Speaker 1: I was halfway there, so I had no problem with
Speaker 1: the heat. As a matter of fact, it was one
Speaker 1: hundred and ten degrees below zero up there. It was
Speaker 1: pretty cold up there.
Speaker 2: That's very cold indeed, And I wanted to qualify this
Speaker 2: for the listening audience here on Team Talking Network and
Speaker 2: News Talk eleven hundred here in Phoenix. When you're falling
Speaker 2: like this, it should be stated that you had a
Speaker 2: free fall jump of about how long before your first
Speaker 2: shoot opened?
Speaker 1: Well, actually the main shoot did not open until about
Speaker 1: fourteen thousand feet, so you know, I was very busy.
Speaker 1: You know. People have also asked him, you know, what
Speaker 1: were you thinking about? Well, I was there at the
Speaker 1: test pilot. I was there to gather information, and I
Speaker 1: was constantly talking into my interfo. I didn't have a
Speaker 1: radio or anything to talk to the ground, but I had
Speaker 1: an intercom, a little take recorder, and I was constantly
Speaker 1: describing how my parachute was working, how the stabilization was doing,
Speaker 1: how just what was happening. So I was extremely busy
Speaker 1: all the way down.
Speaker 2: That's amazing stuff. And you were rewarded as the story
Speaker 2: continues to see Bee Harmon Trophy presented to you directly
Speaker 2: by President Eisenhower in nineteen sixty and of course the
Speaker 2: Distinguished Flying Cross and other more memorable wa to continue.
Speaker 2: This is amazing, colonel, And you know, folks, it's an
Speaker 2: honor to be able to speak to somebody who's done
Speaker 2: something like this, because the average parachute jump, if you
Speaker 2: could tell us this, if a person's going to go
Speaker 2: out and want to learn how to do this as
Speaker 2: a civilian, the average jump is about what height and
Speaker 2: about how long does the person free fall?
Speaker 1: Well, of course, the longer they've jumped, the longer they
Speaker 1: free fall, but when they first start off, they usually
Speaker 1: start off with a ten second free fall something like that.
Speaker 1: The techniques they use today are very safe. They have
Speaker 1: very good parachutes, good instructions. The FAA closely watches the
Speaker 1: instruction that they give, and it's really a pretty dog
Speaker 1: on safe environment. If you go to a good school,
Speaker 1: learn the parachute jump. And by the way, when I
Speaker 1: made my jump, people think, well, you know, I must
Speaker 1: have had thousands of parachute jumps when I made this one,
Speaker 1: But no, I only had that was my thirty jump.
Speaker 1: And the reason was was I was there to test
Speaker 1: equipment for astronauts and pilots. And astronauts and pilots are
Speaker 1: not trained parachutes, they are not skydivers. So I was
Speaker 1: there with a minimum amount of parachue jumps on purpose
Speaker 1: to be sure that what I was gathering would be
Speaker 1: applicable to pilots and afterronauts.
Speaker 2: Well, it's interesting to note for those that are interested
Speaker 2: in the science of space science there that you're a
Speaker 2: jump on that date in August of nineteen sixty pre dates,
Speaker 2: if I'm correct, the Alan Shepherd launch of the first
Speaker 2: suborbital flight around into space.
Speaker 1: Correct. Oh, yes, yes, quite a bit so. Actually, I
Speaker 1: was the first man in the space. It was an
Speaker 1: audible to space. Well, I was the first man in space.
Speaker 1: Space starts really at about sixty two thousand feet for
Speaker 1: the man because above six two thousand feet that's where
Speaker 1: blood boils and without a pressure suit you cannot live.
Speaker 1: So for space it starts to sick two thousand feet.
Speaker 2: No, colonel, we want to salute your service to the
Speaker 2: United States Military, and as the story goes on, we'd
Speaker 2: love to hear your comment about the rest of your career,
Speaker 2: A very important career that everybody needs to know about.
Speaker 2: You were also involved as the commander of a very
Speaker 2: famous aircraft squadron known as the five to fifty fifth
Speaker 2: Triple Nickel, which I know from Arizona here was one
Speaker 2: of the first to also have the F fifteen at
Speaker 2: Luke Air Force Base. Tell us all about the Triple Nickel.
Speaker 1: Well, it was a great squadron, and you're right. They
Speaker 1: had the first F fifteens and they came there from
Speaker 1: Clark and they were its first unit to f F
Speaker 1: fifteens and checked out all the F fifteen files in
Speaker 1: the Air Force. The Triple Nickel we shot down more
Speaker 1: bigs than any other squadron it was in Vietnam, Navy
Speaker 1: or Air Force. We had a great bunch of warriors
Speaker 1: that did a very good job. And I was a
Speaker 1: proud commander of that organization for a year before I
Speaker 1: got shot down. It was a great group of people,
Speaker 1: and they're still great right now. They're going haveviano flying
Speaker 1: F sixteen's and they're still in a great organization.
Speaker 2: We also need to say, as a member of the
Speaker 2: Armed Forces, you did serve your time not only with
Speaker 2: the United States Military, but you were held captive for
Speaker 2: some eleven months when you were shot down in May eleventh,
Speaker 2: nineteen sixty two, nineteen seventy two. Excuse me, and among
Speaker 2: the other folks that I'm sure you know very well,
Speaker 2: similar stories, like Senator John McCain and also Admiral Stockdale,
Speaker 2: And again, sir, we just want to salute your service
Speaker 2: to the United States Military.
Speaker 1: I actually had three tours in Vietnam, and I was
Speaker 1: there from sixty three, sixty four, sixty six, sixty seven,
Speaker 1: and seventy one seventy two, and I had over one
Speaker 1: thousand hours of combat four hundred and eighty three combat sorties.
Speaker 1: And you know, I really believe in what we're doing.
Speaker 2: We certainly salute you as anyone who was killed captive
Speaker 2: and none of us understand what one goes through, and
Speaker 2: obviously eleven months, I don't know how I would manage
Speaker 2: the time, Colonel, being kept away from family and my
Speaker 2: military comrades. Again, we salute you for all the service
Speaker 2: that you've given to this great nation. But back to
Speaker 2: the subject matter of your love of ballooning in the
Speaker 2: time we have a lot of Today, another amazing historic
Speaker 2: milestone has achieved. In September of nineteen eighty four, Colonel
Speaker 2: tell us about this wonderful opportunity to fly solo across
Speaker 2: the Atlantic.
Speaker 1: Well, now, doctor Scott was ten year that was twenty
Speaker 1: years ago. Twenty years ago. Next month I made the
Speaker 1: first solo balloon flight across the Atlantic Ocean. It had
Speaker 1: never been done before. We did it just for an adventure.
Speaker 1: We did it just because it never been done before.
Speaker 1: We did it to have a good time, and we
Speaker 1: did exactly that. I had a great group of people
Speaker 1: that were my sponsors, and we had an awful lot
Speaker 1: of fun doing it. It flew for three and a
Speaker 1: half days to go off from Maine and Atlanta in Italy,
Speaker 1: and it was just a blast. I also, of course,
Speaker 1: was in the Gordon Bennet balloon races. And next month
Speaker 1: in Albuquerque, I'm going to be flying another gas balloon
Speaker 1: in a race from Albuquerque and Saturday, the second of October.
Speaker 2: Well, that's always a mecca watch for the balloon fans,
Speaker 2: the amateurs and the folks that not are just amateurs,
Speaker 2: but the real diehards of the sport of aerial balloading.
Speaker 2: And this is what a major event that occurs in
Speaker 2: October every year in Albuquerque, right, yes.
Speaker 1: Sir, every year. I guess that twenty six anniverts of
Speaker 1: my This's been happening for a long time. But that's
Speaker 1: the fantastic ceremony. They'll have a thousand balloons there that
Speaker 1: will take off for a various flights. But the balloon
Speaker 1: that I'm flying in are gas balloons, and there will
Speaker 1: be about twenty of those gas balloons in the race.
Speaker 2: Not hot air balloons.
Speaker 1: They're not hot air balloon. This is gas using the
Speaker 1: helium gas helium gas. Interesting.
Speaker 2: Now, on this flight with Rosio Grady across the Atlantic,
Speaker 2: you're up ten thousand to seventeen thousand feet. What's that
Speaker 2: experience like because obviously you need actrogyen at certain levels,
Speaker 2: but what do you see do you see airliners passing by,
Speaker 2: not close, of course, but what's the experience like at
Speaker 2: that height?
Speaker 1: Well, actually, the highest altitude that I got was about
Speaker 1: twenty two thousand feet and the airliners are up at
Speaker 1: thirty to forty thousand feet, so I never saw any airliners.
Speaker 1: I did get boomed twice by the concord. It's scared
Speaker 1: the daylight.
Speaker 2: Side of me because that must have been an experience.
Speaker 1: That was quite an experience, and of course I had
Speaker 1: no idea what was going to happen, and first time
Speaker 1: it happened, it just scared the daylight side, I mean,
Speaker 1: but after that then I realized what it was. It
Speaker 1: didn't bother me so much the next time. But the
Speaker 1: airliners are much higher than I was in my flight,
Speaker 1: and of course I was on oxygen a great deal
Speaker 1: of the time. In the half days I slept two
Speaker 1: and a half hours. I would sleep ten minutes at
Speaker 1: a time. And it was a it was an exciting
Speaker 1: it was an exciting flight and never been done before,
Speaker 1: and we wanted to do something it was unique, and
Speaker 1: this was a unique event.
Speaker 2: I'm not as current as you are in the history
Speaker 2: of man ballooning, but am I correct that Albuquerque residents. Also, Max,
Speaker 2: I'm trying to think of ben A Bruzzo and Maxi
Speaker 2: Anderson were also involved in across a transatlantic flight too.
Speaker 1: They made the first flight with three man crew, Maxi
Speaker 1: Anderson and Bena Bruso. They made that flight in nineteen
Speaker 1: seventy eight and they they took off a main and
Speaker 1: landed in France.
Speaker 2: Well, it's been a pleasure, Colonel. I wish we had
Speaker 2: more time here on the show today. But in closing,
Speaker 2: if you could for about a minute, could you tell
Speaker 2: us what's new with Colonel Kittinger and us, what some
Speaker 2: of the activities you're involved in, and how can people
Speaker 2: get in touch with you if they'd like to learn
Speaker 2: more about what you've done.
Speaker 1: Well, first of all, it's pad. There's a pretty good
Speaker 1: book called The pre Astronauts written by Craig Ryan, which
Speaker 1: describes a lot of the research that we did back
Speaker 1: in those days. And folks are interested in that era
Speaker 1: and that research we did. That book is a real
Speaker 1: good book, and it's on Amazon dot com and I'm
Speaker 1: sure in yngshy bookstore. The sky is still my office.
Speaker 1: I still fly balloons, I still fly airplanes, and I
Speaker 1: still have the love of aviation I've always had, and
Speaker 1: I'm going to keep flying as long as I possibly
Speaker 1: can because I really love it, and I love the
Speaker 1: people that are associated with it, and it's just an
Speaker 1: awful lot of fun.
Speaker 2: Oh, ladies and gentlemen, you've heard it from the man himself.
Speaker 2: We include our interview proudly and thank him ahead of time,
Speaker 2: Colonel Joe Kittinger, retired Air Force Colonel, and we want
Speaker 2: to thank him for being part of our program today
Speaker 2: here on teen talknetwork dot com and our flagship news
Speaker 2: Talk eleven hundred that is kfn X, the fifty thousand
Speaker 2: and one powerhouse of the Desert Southwest. Colonel, I look
Speaker 2: forward to staying in touch with you, and if by
Speaker 2: chance I can make another trip out to the Florida area,
Speaker 2: I love your permission to be able to meet you
Speaker 2: face to face.
Speaker 1: Give me a call.
Speaker 2: E Oh, thank you, sir, and that concludes our program today.
Speaker 2: Thank you for listening to the Doctor Sky Show heard
Speaker 2: each week as you know on teen Talknework dot com
Speaker 2: and news Talk eleven hundred k FNX and Phoenix from
Speaker 2: Doctor Sky to all of you, always keep your eyes
Speaker 2: to the skies. Thank you, Colonel Good afternoon everyone. I'm
Speaker 2: Steve Kats doctor Sky once again here on teen talknetwork
Speaker 2: dot com, where we bring you from the world of aviation, astronomy, aerospace,
Speaker 2: and of course the subject science of weather. Newsbreakers, those
Speaker 2: that make news and have made news in these wonderful sciences.
Speaker 2: And today's program we have our very special guest, the
Speaker 2: United States Air Force retired Colonel Joseph Kittinger, Junior, who,
Speaker 2: as we discuss his background here on teen talknetwork dot com,
Speaker 2: I'm sure everyone listening will be fascinated about the stories
Speaker 2: of what Colonel Kittinger will tell us. Colonel Kittinger, Welcome
Speaker 2: to teen talknetwork dot com.
Speaker 1: Well, thanks, Steve, I'm delighted to be invited to be
Speaker 1: on the program.
Speaker 2: Well, thanks so much for joining us today. One of
Speaker 2: the most amazing things, and I'm sure a lot of
Speaker 2: students out there when they study aviation, your name, of course,
Speaker 2: will come up in the wonderful world of aviation because
Speaker 2: of any things that you've done in your career. But
Speaker 2: before we get into that, if you be kind enough
Speaker 2: to explain to us how you got started with the
Speaker 2: Air Force and aviation and we'll start from there.
Speaker 1: Well, Steve, as a small boy, I just I had
Speaker 1: a dream that I wanted to be an aviator. That
Speaker 1: was my first wish, my first love. That was my
Speaker 1: field of dreams. Uh, that was what that was what
Speaker 1: I was thinking about. And and one day my father
Speaker 1: took me aside and said, Joey said, you know you can.
Speaker 1: You can always reach your dreams. But you got to
Speaker 1: work for it. He said, you got to study harder.
Speaker 1: I said, well, father, I thought if I just had
Speaker 1: a dream, but it would happen. And my father said, no,
Speaker 1: you have to work hard for it. And uh, that
Speaker 1: changed my whole philosophy because all of a sudden, I
Speaker 1: started applying myself in school where I figured if I
Speaker 1: could dream about something and and and fantasize about it,
Speaker 1: of what happened. But it's life's not like that way.
Speaker 1: If you want something really hard, you've got to work
Speaker 1: hard for it. And and that that's that's a lesson
Speaker 1: I think that everyone should should address, because I've never
Speaker 1: met a successful person yet. Steve that that that was
Speaker 1: not a person that worked hard. There's no such thing
Speaker 1: as a free gift in life. It requires a lot
Speaker 1: of hard effort and work on everyone's part. And then
Speaker 1: you can succeed, but to just sit there and dream
Speaker 1: about it, nothing's going to happen.
Speaker 2: You're absolutely right, Colonel Joe. And from your start in
Speaker 2: going to school studying aviation and then going into the
Speaker 2: Air Force, what I find most fascinating with that good
Speaker 2: advice is that you did do something about that. And
Speaker 2: if you tell us briefly about your Air Force career
Speaker 2: and how you actually got started there and then when
Speaker 2: you moved on to the program that we'd like to
Speaker 2: discuss as the focus of the program today, manheigh ballooning
Speaker 2: and the wonderful journey that you're going to tell us
Speaker 2: about about some incredible feat that has yet to be
Speaker 2: duplicated today jump from some one hundred and two thousand,
Speaker 2: eight hundred feet above the earth. An incredible story that
Speaker 2: you're about to tell us.
Speaker 1: Well, I went to the University of Florida, and as
Speaker 1: soon as I had a sufficient educational background to join
Speaker 1: the Air Force, I did, and I went to pilot
Speaker 1: training out in Texas, and after years of intense training,
Speaker 1: I realized my dream of being a fighter pilot. And
Speaker 1: that was one of the happiest days of my life
Speaker 1: when I finally realized my dream that I'd worked my
Speaker 1: whole life for. I then went into a fighter organization
Speaker 1: in Germany. I was stationed in Germany and for almost
Speaker 1: well for three years during the Korean War, I was
Speaker 1: stationed in Germany, which I didn't have an opportunity to
Speaker 1: serve in that conflict. But when I left that assignment,
Speaker 1: I went to the Ever Research and Development Command and
Speaker 1: where I volunteered to go there, and I was an
Speaker 1: experimental test pilot and a fighter test business and that
Speaker 1: was that was an awful lot of fun. I just
Speaker 1: there's nothing but enjoyment for me to fly all these
Speaker 1: different wonderful airplanes and and and and be able to
Speaker 1: feel like I was contributing something to my country, but
Speaker 1: at the same time having just an absolute blast flying
Speaker 1: all these wonderful, beautiful uh Jet fighter aircraft that the
Speaker 1: Air Force had at the time. And as a result
Speaker 1: of that program, Steve I found out about the Air
Speaker 1: Force entering into a program research program for the for
Speaker 1: the coming space age, and the program was called Manhai.
Speaker 1: Now in those days, we had not gone into space.
Speaker 1: It was it was a dream that just a few
Speaker 1: people had, and I worked for one of those men,
Speaker 1: doctor John Paul Staff. He was the real visionary in
Speaker 1: the Air Force in regards to the Air Force and
Speaker 1: our country going into space. And this program that he started,
Speaker 1: uh Manhai was to gather information about how we're going
Speaker 1: to take care of and putting a man into a
Speaker 1: space environment, what requirements will be, where there be for
Speaker 1: training and selection and life support, equipment and communications and
Speaker 1: all of the different facets of going into space. We
Speaker 1: had little or new knowledge, and doctor Stapp's program was
Speaker 1: to try to acquire that knowledge.
Speaker 2: I understand if I'm correct that you were a participant
Speaker 2: in the what we would call the rocket sled testing
Speaker 2: in New Mexico. Is that also part of what doctor
Speaker 2: Staff was working on.
Speaker 1: Well? Of course, doctor Staff, he was such a visionary,
Speaker 1: used to give you an idea. Back in the early
Speaker 1: in the forties, the Air Force was losing more people
Speaker 1: to automobile crashes, and they were airplane crashes, and doctor Stapp,
Speaker 1: being a doctor, started a series of research programs using
Speaker 1: dummies and so forth automobiles to come up with a
Speaker 1: crash protection program for cars. As a matter of fact,
Speaker 1: he was one of the first people in our country
Speaker 1: that came up with the idea of safety belts. And
Speaker 1: of all the things that doctor Staff did, I would
Speaker 1: say that his research work that he did on safety belts,
Speaker 1: it was probably the most profound. And he's little. He's
Speaker 1: given a little recognition for this, but anyway, it was
Speaker 1: an Air Force program that he had and he used
Speaker 1: rocket sleds to acquire some of this data, and he
Speaker 1: rode the rocket sled and then in nineteen fifty five
Speaker 1: he made a rocket sled run over six hundred and
Speaker 1: thirteen miles an hour, and he pulled minus forty one
Speaker 1: gs when he crashed into the barrier at the end.
Speaker 1: He established a limit to human physological deceleration and crashes
Speaker 1: in high speed ejections.
Speaker 2: And you're known as that hasn't been duplicated. I would have.
Speaker 1: And I doubt if it will, Steve, because he came
Speaker 1: very close to being killed in that experiment.
Speaker 2: I read about this in the book that, of course,
Speaker 2: is The pre Astronauts, which has written about yourself and
Speaker 2: all about the lovely experiences and the mind boggling experiences
Speaker 2: of the nineteen fifties and sixties. But when we see
Speaker 2: these pictures, I mean, maybe you could explain to us,
Speaker 2: Colonel Joe, what the rocket slid is really all about.
Speaker 2: I think people might have an idea about this, but
Speaker 2: maybe some students are kind of curious what that is.
Speaker 1: Well, when a person crashes into an immovable object, there
Speaker 1: is a tremendous deceleration associated with that. To duplicate this,
Speaker 1: doctor Stapp used a rocket sled, and this sled actually
Speaker 1: was a very fast rocket propelled sled with a booster
Speaker 1: on it that got up to very high speeds and
Speaker 1: then stopped in a very short distance. During this stopping,
Speaker 1: the subject, doctor Stapp was subjected to these tremendous deceleration forces,
Speaker 1: just like if he had made a car crash or
Speaker 1: he had ejected from a very high speed aircraft, and
Speaker 1: the forces on the body were just tremendous and he
Speaker 1: was very fortunate that he lived through it. But the
Speaker 1: fantastic thing about doctor Stapp was was that he knew
Speaker 1: what was going to happen to him. He knew the
Speaker 1: physical beating that he was going to take. But he
Speaker 1: felt that that it was so important that we gather
Speaker 1: this knowledge that he subjected himself to these tremendous forces.
Speaker 1: He's the bravest man I've ever met in my life.
Speaker 1: Was doctor John Paul Staff because he knew exactly what
Speaker 1: was going to happen to him, but he took that
Speaker 1: chance knowing that we needed this information for not only
Speaker 1: for our space program and protection for pilots he checking
Speaker 1: the aircraft, but for christ protection also.
Speaker 2: Oh, Colonel Joe, it's great that we're talking about these
Speaker 2: subjects because I think people like doctor Stamp, we don't
Speaker 2: see a lot of recognition in the modern world today
Speaker 2: about the pioneers. And once again it's we're very fortunate
Speaker 2: to have you explaining this wonderful story. But to transition
Speaker 2: onto your career back in nineteen fifty seven, it appears
Speaker 2: that you become involved in a project called Project Manheigh,
Speaker 2: which are what balloon flights where you're sitting in some
Speaker 2: sort of a gondola to go up to the higher
Speaker 2: levels of the atmospheres.
Speaker 1: Are correct, yes, Steve, But first of all you say, well,
Speaker 1: why is use a balloon? Well, because there wasn't any
Speaker 1: aircraft that would get up there. There wasn't any spacecraft
Speaker 1: that would get up there. So the only way that
Speaker 1: we could gather this data was to use Man's oldest
Speaker 1: stereal vehicle, which was a balloon vehicle. The balloon really
Speaker 1: complicated the matter because if we'd had an aircraft we
Speaker 1: could have gotten up there to do this experimentation with
Speaker 1: it would have been much simpler, much easier. But the
Speaker 1: balloon was the only vehicle that we had in those
Speaker 1: days to get to these very high altitudes to do
Speaker 1: these types of scientific investigations.
Speaker 2: On your first flame, How did it feel for you
Speaker 2: to be encased in this? So I imagine a small
Speaker 2: gondola and you're basically the only contact with the ground
Speaker 2: is of course by radio. But what's that feeling lying
Speaker 2: and how long as a take to ascend to these
Speaker 2: kind of altitudes.
Speaker 1: Well, first of all, Steve, this gondola was four foot
Speaker 1: actually three feet across and seven feet high. It was
Speaker 1: really smaller than a phone booth. And of course today
Speaker 1: young kids don't know what a phone booth is, but
Speaker 1: back in my day they were a small building that
Speaker 1: you'd go into to make a telephone call. But anyway,
Speaker 1: it was very small. It was small for a reason.
Speaker 1: It was small because we knew when we went into
Speaker 1: space that the man was going to be in a
Speaker 1: very small, confined cockpitar capsule, and we wanted to design
Speaker 1: systems that would work in a small confined area, and
Speaker 1: we wanted a man to be in a small confined area.
Speaker 1: And when I made that first flight, which was in
Speaker 1: June of nineteen fifty seven, no man had ever been
Speaker 1: aloft above the Earth's atmosphere for a prolong period of
Speaker 1: time like I was going to be. I was a
Speaker 1: trained fighter pilot, experimental fighter pilot. I was a trained parachutist.
Speaker 1: I was a research engineer, and I was there in
Speaker 1: that capacity as a research engineer, together the data that
Speaker 1: we needed preparation for the space program.
Speaker 2: And what's fascinating, Colonel is not as many people listening
Speaker 2: probably do know, and if they don't, this is before
Speaker 2: the launch of Sputnik and also before the launch of
Speaker 2: the first supposed human in space Euriga Gharan.
Speaker 1: Oh yes, this was two years actually three years before
Speaker 1: any other man's space program. And we were there because
Speaker 1: we knew that well. Doctor stapp was a proponent of this.
Speaker 1: Doctor Stapf knew we were going into space. He was
Speaker 1: one of the few people that really had faith that
Speaker 1: we were going into space, and he knew that we
Speaker 1: needed this information to prepare us for that step. The
Speaker 1: information that we gathered in our research programs assisted us
Speaker 1: our nation in Gidegan space. We didn't make it happen,
Speaker 1: but we learned lessons and we learned, we gathered data
Speaker 1: that helped us in the file analysis to go into
Speaker 1: space in a safe manner.
Speaker 2: And for attaining these altitude high projects. Of course, with
Speaker 2: Project man High, you're awarded the Distinguished Flying Cross for
Speaker 2: doing this over one of your period of a few flights.
Speaker 1: Yes, I was awarded the Distinguished Flying Cross for this program,
Speaker 1: which I was certainly honored by that. And then I
Speaker 1: left and went on to another program, which was Project Excelsior.
Speaker 1: Whereas the first flight was how to protect a man
Speaker 1: in a space environment, how to have communications in physiological monitoring,
Speaker 1: and how to train an astronaut, how select an astronaut.
Speaker 1: The purpose of Excelsior was to gather information about how
Speaker 1: to protect a man in a space environment in a
Speaker 1: pressure suit, and how to provide a means of emergency
Speaker 1: escape from very high altitude. And on this program I
Speaker 1: went up to altitude of actually made three parachute jumps
Speaker 1: ever higher, one from seventy six thousand from seventy five thousand,
Speaker 1: and a third one from one hundred and three thousand
Speaker 1: feet Now, we weren't there to set records. We were
Speaker 1: there to gather data, to gather information that we needed
Speaker 1: for our space program.
Speaker 2: Put on the Mitida of Ugust sixteenth, nineteen sixty this
Speaker 2: one hundred and two eight hundred foot high attempt again
Speaker 2: the world record. I believe you do something very special here,
Speaker 2: and if you'd be kind enough to tell us you're
Speaker 2: up there, you're then taking this big leap of faith,
Speaker 2: as you call it, and you could describe to everybody
Speaker 2: listening to me. Now, folks, this is when I think
Speaker 2: one of the most amazing stories in here here is
Speaker 2: a person as a pre astronaut stepping out of a
Speaker 2: balloon at the outer edges of the atmosphere. And let
Speaker 2: me not take the thunder away, Colonel Joe, tell us
Speaker 2: exactly what happened in those more when you reach the
Speaker 2: altitude and were prepared to make this historic.
Speaker 1: Jont Well, first of all, it took about an hour
Speaker 1: and a half to get up there. The gondola was
Speaker 1: not pressurized, just an open gondola with a door when
Speaker 1: I could look out and see the earth beneath me
Speaker 1: as I went aloft. When I got to one hundred
Speaker 1: and three thousand feet. That was above ninety nine percent
Speaker 1: of the Earth's atmosphere. The pressure at sea level is
Speaker 1: about seven hundred and twenty milimeters. The pressure at one
Speaker 1: hundred and three thousand feet is five millimeters. It's almost
Speaker 1: a vacuum. It is very close to be the same
Speaker 1: environment that's on the Moon. Of course, the moon is zero,
Speaker 1: but we're only five millimeters, So we were close to
Speaker 1: an atmosphere to a condition that was similar to being
Speaker 1: in walking on the Moon. I had forty six different
Speaker 1: items I had to go through my checklist when I
Speaker 1: got to altitude. Prior to jumping, I drifted for about
Speaker 1: eleven minutes. As I drifted over the exact jump point,
Speaker 1: I went through my completed my checklist, I just connected
Speaker 1: all my equipment. I stood up, I set a silent prayer.
Speaker 1: I said, Lord take care of me now, and I
Speaker 1: jumped out the door, razing. I rolled over my back
Speaker 1: and I thought that I was amazed because I saw
Speaker 1: this balloon and the gondola just roaring into space, and
Speaker 1: I couldn't believe it how fast it was going. And
Speaker 1: then I realized that I was the one that was
Speaker 1: going fast, and lou was just stitting sitting there, and
Speaker 1: I was going down at a fantastic rate. Now because
Speaker 1: there's no atmosphere there, I reached very high speed. I
Speaker 1: was the first man to go super psychic without an airplane.
Speaker 1: I was seven hundred and fourteen miles an hour, had
Speaker 1: about ninety thousand feet and from ninety thousand feet down,
Speaker 1: I kept slowing down as the atmosphere increased, the pressure increased.
Speaker 1: I kept constantly slowing down, and I free fell for
Speaker 1: four minutes and thirty six seconds and my parachute opened
Speaker 1: at about fourteen thousand feet and about ten minutes later
Speaker 1: I was landed on the ground in New Mexico.
Speaker 2: Colonel Joe, when you're going at the speed approaching that
Speaker 2: of sound and beyond, what's that feeling? What was that
Speaker 2: feeling like? I mean, do you feel anything? Do you
Speaker 2: break the sound barrier or is there any sensation that
Speaker 2: you could tell us.
Speaker 1: About or no. I was going extremely fast, Steve, and
Speaker 1: I knew I was going fast because you know, we
Speaker 1: had we had dropped dummies from up there. We had
Speaker 1: a dog on good idea how fast I was going
Speaker 1: to be? Uh? During this dcent the UH, I'm extremely busy.
Speaker 1: You can well imagine I've got a lot of information
Speaker 1: I'm there to acquire. I was very very busy gathering information,
Speaker 1: gathering data, talking into my tape recorder getting that. I mean,
Speaker 1: I was there for a purpose, and it wasn't to
Speaker 1: enjoy the ride down. It was to gather information we
Speaker 1: needed for our space program. So I was very very
Speaker 1: busy during the entire.
Speaker 2: Jump, So throughout this whole flight and to the ground,
Speaker 2: from the time you jump to actually the time you're
Speaker 2: on the ground, about how long a period of time
Speaker 2: and total is that.
Speaker 1: Well, from the time I jumped, Steve, it took four
Speaker 1: and a half minutes to descent, and then another about
Speaker 1: ten minutes, so it's about almost fifteen minutes from the
Speaker 1: time I jumped until the time I was on the ground.
Speaker 2: Well, that's the most amazing story, Colonel. I mean, this
Speaker 2: is something, folks, as we were telling you before, is
Speaker 2: unheard of. I mean, you hear about people breaking the
Speaker 2: sound barrier, of course, General Jaeger, of course with the
Speaker 2: first at the time, of course going faster than the
Speaker 2: speed of sound. But that's of course in a vehicle,
Speaker 2: an aircraft, so rocking the craft. You're listening to someone
Speaker 2: who's been doing this by their sheer force of Earth's
Speaker 2: gravity tugging on their body, which is most amazing. But
Speaker 2: after this period of your life, colonel, you go back
Speaker 2: to the United States Air Force or in the United
Speaker 2: States Air Force and serve a period of time as
Speaker 2: want the commander of the Triple Nickel Fighter Squadron.
Speaker 1: Yes, well, before I get there, let me sure that
Speaker 1: book that you mentioned, the Preactionauts. Absolutely, I would recommend
Speaker 1: that people that have an interest in the research we
Speaker 1: did back in those days, they get a copy of
Speaker 1: that book and read it. It was written by a
Speaker 1: fellow by name of Craig Ryan, and it's an excellent article,
Speaker 1: a book about the research that we did back in
Speaker 1: those period of time. It's well done and it's a good,
Speaker 1: very good documentation.
Speaker 2: Yes, and I recommend students that are listening to this
Speaker 2: program as a science project. You have already made science
Speaker 2: project right here surrounding the information you're hearing here with
Speaker 2: Colonel Joe Kittinger. And also the wonderful book about the
Speaker 2: pre astronauts.
Speaker 1: Yes, that's a great reference book of that era, what
Speaker 1: we did back in those days. But before we leave
Speaker 1: my research endeavors, I did another program Steve. That was
Speaker 1: called Stargazer, And this one was a project where I
Speaker 1: went up a pressurized gondola with a telescope with an
Speaker 1: astronomer and looked at stars and planets above the Earth's atmosphere.
Speaker 1: This was a one flight we made and it was
Speaker 1: the last scientific balloon flight ever made in the world.
Speaker 1: And this flight was made nineteen sixty two, and that
Speaker 1: was the very last high alitude scientific research project ever done.
Speaker 2: So and astronomer Bill White are sitting in this gondola.
Speaker 2: That says for about eighteen and a half hours.
Speaker 1: Is that correctes eighteen and a half hours. And it
Speaker 1: was a very interesting experiment and it was something that
Speaker 1: was once again a prelude to what was going to
Speaker 1: be done by NASA in the following years with putting
Speaker 1: telescopes into space. But this was with an astronomer. They're
Speaker 1: operating it.
Speaker 2: Yes, that's quite fascina. I mean, still the same tight
Speaker 2: quarter as I imagine, though.
Speaker 1: Well, this was fairly spacious. This was eight feet across, uh,
Speaker 1: I mean it was fairly comfortable. It was it was
Speaker 1: this was meant for working a telescope, and it was
Speaker 1: pretty comfortable environment. And that that capsule what.
Speaker 2: Do you learn Primarily when you look at the differences
Speaker 2: in the atmosphere as the stars. Of course, many people
Speaker 2: think the stars twinkle, but the educated guess is that
Speaker 2: the atmosphere makes them twinkle. What did we really learn though,
Speaker 2: specifically from that it sounds fascinating.
Speaker 1: Well, Steve, you hit the nail on the head. The
Speaker 1: bane of astronomers is our own atmosphere. And if the
Speaker 1: turbulence causes a scinate light, light scintillation and stars twinkling. Uh.
Speaker 1: And if you get above the Earth's atmosphere, now you
Speaker 1: have a clear medium where you can study stars and
Speaker 1: planets without the disturbance of our own atmosphere. And that's
Speaker 1: what an astronomer really likes to do. They like to
Speaker 1: get above the Earth's atmosphere and where they're not handicapped
Speaker 1: by the Earth's atmosphere. And that's what we did in
Speaker 1: our project.
Speaker 2: Sounds most exciting.
Speaker 1: It was a very exciting program. It was sponsored jointly
Speaker 1: by the Air Force and the Navy, and the National
Speaker 1: Graphic was also a part of it in the Smithsonian Observatory.
Speaker 1: That was a very intricate program with MIT involved, and
Speaker 1: it was a very interesting program. But it was the
Speaker 1: last one that was ever done. The last man flight
Speaker 1: ever done was that flight that we did in nineteen
Speaker 1: sixty two.
Speaker 2: Why do you think we don't see any more of
Speaker 2: these today?
Speaker 1: Just well, there's really no lobby associated with trying to
Speaker 1: do it. It's a very cheap and economical way to do it. Steve.
Speaker 1: The amount of money that a bloom plush like this
Speaker 1: cost is nothing by comparison with what a rocket in
Speaker 1: the intricate and expensive systems that are being used by NASA.
Speaker 1: It should be done. There's still a place today for
Speaker 1: this type of man research that should be done.
Speaker 2: As a matter of fact, Colonel Joyce, I saw here
Speaker 2: in Phoenix, where we originate part of my Doctor Sky
Speaker 2: show for teen tucknetwork dot com. About sometime either late
Speaker 2: last year or early this year, there was a series
Speaker 2: of balloons launched from New Mexico that were seen over
Speaker 2: the west and some of these estimated altitudes are about
Speaker 2: one hundred and twenty five thousand feet above the earth,
Speaker 2: and they expanded upwards to about four or five hundred feet.
Speaker 2: They were watched by people and reported as un identified
Speaker 2: flying objects with the rising sun, and I followed the
Speaker 2: object across the skies videotaped extensively. It stayed in the
Speaker 2: skies almost all day and from that altitude that's pretty
Speaker 2: similar to about how high you are. Totally amazing to
Speaker 2: even be able to see that from the ground, and
Speaker 2: its alleged diameter on expansion was about five or six
Speaker 2: hundred feet and it looked like a little disk in
Speaker 2: the sky.
Speaker 1: Way up there. Well, they're forty million cubic foot displacement,
Speaker 1: they're immense balloons and they get to very high altitude
Speaker 1: and there's still a lot of them flown around the world.
Speaker 1: Unmanned flights are flown all over the world gathering data.
Speaker 1: That's a very good research tool that's being still used
Speaker 1: today all over the world, from the Arctics, the Antarctic,
Speaker 1: from Australia, and from our own country. A lot most
Speaker 1: of them are launched from Palestine, Texas as a matter
Speaker 1: of fact. But it's a very unique way to gather research.
Speaker 1: And as you say, you can see him from the earth,
Speaker 1: and you also point out about a lot of people
Speaker 1: report him as flying saucers because they are so spectaculars
Speaker 1: to see him up there.
Speaker 2: Well, we did a television program as kind of a
Speaker 2: special on this to let people know that there's some
Speaker 2: science behind the UFO in this case, and it's good
Speaker 2: to let people know about these kind of things when
Speaker 2: they want to know them in the sky. But in
Speaker 2: the time remaining, Colonel Joe, if you'd be kind enough
Speaker 2: to just tell us you transition after this wonderful career
Speaker 2: in the area of ballooning of both the Earth's atmosphere,
Speaker 2: and then you serve time in Vietnam, if you'd be
Speaker 2: kind enough to tell us about your involvement with the
Speaker 2: Triple Nickel Tactical Fighter Squadron.
Speaker 1: Well, Steve, Actually, my career was had two careers. First
Speaker 1: career was in research and development and experimental test pilot,
Speaker 1: and then as a fighter pilot. In nineteen sixty three,
Speaker 1: I went to Vietnam for the first time, and then
Speaker 1: I went again in sixty six sixty seven and I
Speaker 1: was flying B twenty sixes and A twenty sixes. And
Speaker 1: then in nineteen seventy one I returned to Thailand and
Speaker 1: flying F four phantoms when I was a commander of
Speaker 1: the very famous Triple Nickel Fighter Squadron at Udor in Thailand,
Speaker 1: and I flew over one thousand hours of combat and
Speaker 1: these street tours, and then in March of nineteen seventy two,
Speaker 1: I shot down on mid twenty one and aerial combat.
Speaker 1: And then in the eleventh of May nineteen seventy two,
Speaker 1: I was shot down Hanoi and spent eleven months as
Speaker 1: a pow in the Hanoi Hilton.
Speaker 2: You move on beyond that time of your life to
Speaker 2: do something also quite incredible. In the nineteen eighties. You
Speaker 2: returned to flying what I imagined to be a little different
Speaker 2: type of balloon, known as the Rosio Grady, and you
Speaker 2: make a very historic flight. This is one the first
Speaker 2: man to attempt to cross the ocean from the.
Speaker 1: First solo flight across the Atlantic Ocean. I made a
Speaker 1: flight in nineteen eighty four from Maine to Italy and
Speaker 1: an open gondola solo. I took three and a half days.
Speaker 1: And whereas all other programs in balloons was for research
Speaker 1: and for a good reason, my flight across the Atlantic
Speaker 1: Ocean was done just as an adventure had never been
Speaker 1: done before, and I wanted to do it, and I
Speaker 1: had a wonderful team of people, and we had a
Speaker 1: lot of fun, and I set several worlds records. It'll
Speaker 1: be a long time before they'd ever beat on that flight.
Speaker 2: Sounds exciting, but again, the key word here is solo.
Speaker 2: And how does one remain to do all the things
Speaker 2: on board the balloon. I mean, you rarely have a
Speaker 2: chance to sleep. I would imagine this type of a flight.
Speaker 1: Oh, you're right, Steve. As a matter of fact, in three
Speaker 1: and a half days, I only slept two and a
Speaker 1: half hours.
Speaker 2: That's amazing.
Speaker 1: I sleep ten minutes at a time because I was
Speaker 1: very busy, you know, I had to fly the balloon
Speaker 1: and communicate, navigate, manage all the systems. I was a
Speaker 1: very busy beaver on that flight. But I wanted to
Speaker 1: do a solo because it had already been done with
Speaker 1: a three man crew, and I'm a fighter pilot and
Speaker 1: I had confidence that I could do it. And by Gum,
Speaker 1: I did do it.
Speaker 2: And you sure did. And we salute the wonderful events
Speaker 2: and efforts of your career. As we're talking with again
Speaker 2: United States Air Force retired Colonel Joseph Kittingcher Junior about
Speaker 2: his long career and not only aviation, but in the
Speaker 2: area of flying into the clouds and beyond via balloons
Speaker 2: and transitioning across the ocean.
Speaker 1: Solo.
Speaker 2: But finally, Colonel, in the time remaining, what bit of
Speaker 2: advice would you give young people today if they want
Speaker 2: a career, let's say, in the United States military. I know,
Speaker 2: imagining now what's going on in our country that we're
Speaker 2: called possibly to arms here because of the tragic events
Speaker 2: that are happening to our country by terrorists, but also
Speaker 2: for commercial pilots and for anybody that wants to go
Speaker 2: into a career Litters, what do you recommend they do
Speaker 2: as a student to begin.
Speaker 1: Steve, I would recommend that they establish goals, that they
Speaker 1: work toward these goals, that they don't worry about peer pressure,
Speaker 1: they be themselves and not allow anybody to deter them
Speaker 1: or defer them from what they know is correct. There's
Speaker 1: a lot of adventures still out there in life. There's
Speaker 1: a lot of success that the young people can have,
Speaker 1: but it's up to them. There's no free lunches, there's
Speaker 1: no free anything, and what they get is what they
Speaker 1: put into it, and they just have to devote themselves
Speaker 1: to their future and set goals and stick with me.
Speaker 2: Well, Colonel, your information here is very mind stimulating and
Speaker 2: very very encouraging. And let me be the first of course,
Speaker 2: to thank you for spending the time with me here
Speaker 2: on the Doctor Sky Show. Steve Kate's reporting as we
Speaker 2: continue and conclude another exciting edition of our Teamtalknetwork dot
Speaker 2: Com program today, thanking you ahead of time, Colonel. We've
Speaker 2: been listening to a report here with the United States
Speaker 2: Air Force retired Colonel Joseph W. Kittinger Junior on some
Speaker 2: most amazing events that have happened in his career, and
Speaker 2: I want to thank you, colonel for spending the time
Speaker 2: with us today.
Speaker 1: Thank you for having me, Steve. My pleasure.