Dressed in layers to protect himself against frigid air, test pilot Donovan Heinle took off from California's Moffett Field in an unusual-looking twin-boom aircraft painted black Headed south toward Edwards Air Force Base in the Mojave Desert, he took the unpressurized airplane, a Northrop P-61 Black Widow, to an altitude of 41,000 feet. As Heinle brought the P-61 over a bombing range, he released a swept-wing test body mounted underneath; while it fell, reaching low supersonic speeds, onboard instruments recorded flight data before air brakes and a parachute broke its landing.
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