On this day in 1926 at McCook Field, near Dayton, Ohio, First Lieutenant John Arthur Macready, Air Service, United States Army, took off in an experimental airplane, the Engineering Division XCO-5. He was attempting to exceed the existing Fédération Aéronautique Internationale world altitude record of 39,587', but he did establish a new United States national altitude record of 38,704'. Macready reported, “My watch stopped at 30,000' and I believe it was frozen, because just before landing it started again.” He observed a temperature of -79.6 ° at 34,600'.
The official observers of the National Aeronautic Association were Orville Wright (co-inventor with his brother Wilbur, of the airplane); George Smith of Dayton; and Levitt Custer (inventor of the stratoscope, the original barometric altimeter). Macready is pictured above with his wife.
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