So I pulled the personal chute out of its breakaway clips and started shrugging my way into it while sighing, ‘Pal, I hope you have the necessary gimmick built into your circuits.’ The autopilot didn’t answer, though I wouldn’t have been much surprised if it had. Then I squeezed back into place and proceeded to override the autopilot manually. I didn’t have too much time; I was already over the Deseret basin and I could see the setting sun glinting on the waters of the Great Salt Lake ahead and to the right.
First I took her down some, because 60,000 feet is thin and chilly-too little partial pressure of oxygen for the human lung. Then I started up in a gentle curving climb that would neither tear her wings off nor gee me into a blackout. I had to take her fairly high, because I intended to cut out the rocket motors entirely and force my best girl to light her stovepipes by diving for speed, it being my intention to go into a vertical stall, which would create ‘fire out’-and get off in a hurry at that point. For obvious reasons I did not want the rocket motors to cut loose just as I was trying to say good-by.
I kept curving her up until 1 was lying on my back with the earth behind me and sky ahead. I nursed it along, throttling her down, with the intention of stalling with the fire dead at thirty thousand feet-still thin but within jumping distance of breathable air and still high enough to give my lady a chance to go into her dive without cracking up on the Utah plateau. At about 28,000 1 got that silly, helpless feeling you get when the controls go mushy and won’t bite. Suddenly a light flashed red on the instrument board and both fires were out. It was time to leave.
I almost forgot the seat bottle. I was still stuffing the mouthpiece between my teeth and snapping the nosepiece over my nose while I was trying with the other hand to get the door open-all of this greatly impeded by the fact that the ship and I together were effectively in free fall; the slight air drag at the top of the stall trajectory made me weigh a few ounces, no more.
The door would not open. I finally remembered to slap the spill valve, then it came open and I was almost snatched outside. I hung there for a second or two, while the ground spun crazily overhead, then the door slammed shut and latched-and I shoved myself away from the plane. I didn’t jump-we were falling together, I shoved.
I may have banged my head against a wing. In any case there is a short blank in my memory before I found myself sitting on space about twenty-five yards from the ship. She was spinning slowly and earth and sky were revolving lazily around me. There was a thin cold wind as I fell but I was not yet aware of the cold. We stayed pretty well together for a few moments-or hours; time had stopped-then the ship straightened out into a dive and pulled away from me.
I tried to follow her down by eye and became aware of the icy wind of my fall. My eyes hurt and I remembered something I had read about frozen eyeballs; I covered them with both hands. It helped a lot.
Suddenly I became frightened, panicky at the thought I had delayed the jump too long and was about to smash into the desert floor. I uncovered my eyes and sneaked a look.
No, the ground was still a long way off, two or three miles perhaps. My guess was not worth much as it was already dark down there. I tried to catch sight of the ship, could not see it, then suddenly spotted it as her fires came on. I risked frozen eyes and watched, exultation in my heart. The autopilot did indeed have built into it the emergency circuit for ‘fire out’ and everything was proceeding according to plan. The little sweetheart leveled off, headed west on course, and began to climb for the altitude she had been told to use. I sent a prayer after her that she would win through and end up in the clean Pacific, rather than be shot down.