John Glenn 13, "Friendship 7", and had the name hand-painted on the side like the one on his F-86 had been. Glenn and Carpenter completed their training for the mission in January 1962, but postponement of the launch allowed them to continue rehearsing. Glenn spent 25 hours and 25 minutes in the spacecraft performing hangar and altitude tests, and 59 hours and 45 minutes in the simulator. He flew 70 simulated missions and reacted to 189 simulated system failures. After a long series of delays, "Friendship 7" lifted off from Cape Canaveral Air Force Station on February 20, 1962. There were eleven
John Glenn 1959, he was assigned to the Fighter Design Branch of the Navy Bureau of Aeronautics in Washington, D.C., and attended the University of Maryland. On July 16, 1957, he made the first supersonic transcontinental flight. At that time, the transcontinental speed record, held by an Air Force Republic F-84 Thunderjet, was 3 hours 45 minutes and Glenn calculated that an F8U Crusader could do it faster. Because its air speed was faster than that of a .45 caliber bullet, Glenn called his project "Project Bullet". He flew an F8U Crusader from Los Alamitos, California to Floyd Bennett Field in New