Test pilot Bill Westfall prepares to fly the experimental RJX-1 rocket jet aircraft, watched by Colonel Hank and engineer Hargrove, on a flight meant to take it higher and faster than any plane before. Westfall reaches the edge of space, where a strange object appears and his radio falls silent. Escape is a radio drama series, and this episode, The Outer Limit, was broadcast on February 7, 1950, starring Frank Lovejoy. The story follows Westfall's disappearance and the unsettling events that follow when he returns after ten hours in the air.
Characters: Bill Westfall, Colonel Hank, Hargrove, Major Westfall, Joe, Pete, Major Donaldson, Zeglon
The transcript of “097- The Outer Limit”, an episode of Escape first broadcast February 7, 1950. Press a time to play from that line (a 60-second preview; Potato Plus plays it all). Escape plays Escape free, live around the clock. Search inside this transcript.
Transcript
Tired of the everyday routine, ever, dream of a life of romantic adventure? Want to get away from it all? We offer you escape! Escape, designed to free you from the four walls of today for a half hour of high adventure.
Tonight we escape with the pilot of an experimental jet rocket aircraft, About to be hurled forty miles out from the Earth's surface into the limitless boundaries of space where he receives the most terrible warning in the history of man from which there is no escape.
As Graham Doar tells it in his thrilling and widely discussed story the outer limit, starring Frank Lovejoy. OK, Colonel. Yes, sir. All of you will want to know why we took you one out of whatever warm bed you were in.
We've got a reason. The RJX-1. Yeah, yeah, that's right. The RJX-1. The top-top secret experimental rocket jet aircraft. We've been babying it, nursing it, staying up nights with it for 16 months now. This morning Major Westfall is going to wean it.
Bill is going to take her out and beat her up to death. I can't impress upon you men how extraordinary this flight is. It's an eight rocket ship. That's what I said, eight rockets. Eight rockets designed to take man into areas of space that have never been explored before.
And at a rate of speed to which no pilot has yet been subjected. Some of you men have already flown many times the speed of sound, so... I don't have to tell you very much.
Yo. Yes, Colonel? You'll lead the F-86s. You and the other three jet boys will be Bill's chase planes. We want observation at 35,000 feet. Yes, sir. OK, here's how it plays. Bullock hurtin' on the map, will you, Sergeant?
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And don't worry, Colonel. He's a strong boy, best nerds I've seen. I'd say things will be all right. Delusions like bills latched on to... Well, delusions like this... Major. Yes, Colonel? Major, when you make your charts for Bill, diagnose him and treat him and do all the things you have to, When you do that major consider this.
Yes. How did he keep that plane in the air for ten hours? For ten hours major when he had fueled the last him only ten minutes. Escape is produced and directed by William N. Robeson and tonight starred Frank Lovejoy in the Outer Limit by Graham Doar, adapted for radio by Martin Fine and David Friedken.
Featured in the cast were Charles McGraw's The Colonel, Jeff Corey as Major Donaldson, Stan Waxman as Zeglon and Ian Wolf as Zill. Special music was arranged and conducted by Del Castillo. Actual flight details were authenticated by rocket test pilot Jean May, Sergeant Hartley Caldwell of the Air Force section of the Armed Forces Public Information Office
and by the Douglas Aircraft Corporation. Next week. You were on the Baltic Sea with the insight of the Soviet coast, where your Russian wife is secretly waiting to escape with you to England, and on the cold, dark waters behind you, an armed patrol boat is about to discover your small sailing craft.
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