Chuck Yeager: You don’t feel anything. You’re too busy. You’re going through your checklist, loading the pressure regulators, the dome, and checking all the instrumentation. And that’s about the way of it. You listen to the B-29 crew, who’s hauling you up, and you start diving to pick up speed so that he drops you out at a speed above your stall speed. Which, the stalling speed on the X-1 fully loaded was 240 miles an hour indicated, which is pretty fast. You’re heavy, and it’s a compact little airplane, and you come out of a dark place into bright sunlight, and for a second you’re kind of blinded. But it doesn’t take you long for your pupils to shrink down. And you really don’t give much thought to the drop. You are too busy.