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Looking back, it seems almost prophetic that when he was born, on Feb. 28, 1924, in the small tidewater town of Phoebus, Va., he was christened Christopher Columbus Kraft Jr. (His father, now dead, was a finance officer at a veterans' hospital, and got his name because he was born in New York City in the year of the 400th anniversary of Columbus' 1492 voyage, the week of the dedication of Columbus Circle.) Young Chris grew up in a modest duplex in a tough part of Phoebus, played a good game of sand-lot baseball and dreamed of becoming a big-leaguer. To this day, his most prized possession is a baseball he had autographed by Babe Ruth and Lou Gehrig one hot summer day when he was nine years old. In high school, he handled mathematics with such facility that he decided to study engineering−in case he should fail to make the grade in baseball.
At Virginia Polytechnic Institute, which he entered in 1941, Kraft enrolled in the school's new department of aeronautical engineering. He was rejected for service in World War II because of a childhood injury that left his right hand scarred and slightly shriveled. After graduating from V.P.I, in 1944 with a .325 batting average, a B-plus scholastic average, and a fascination with the problems of aircraft stability and control, he went to work as a flight research engineer at Langley.
Working under Division Boss William Hewitt Phillips, whom Kraft credits as the man most responsible for his development as an aeronautical engineer and flight-test conductor, his first project was to help build a quarter-scale model of the X-1 to be dropped from a B-29 at 35,000 ft. to determine its ability to withstand the stresses of breaking the sound barrier. Rigged with sensitive instruments, the model measured and relayed the effects of near Mach 1 to engineers huddled in a couple of old trailers−one of the first uses of the telemetry that was to become so important in space-flight control.
Madder than Hell. Of all his NACA work, Kraft is proudest of a system that he and Phillips devised to smooth out flights in rough air. They redesigned an old twin-engine Beechcraft C45 and fitted it with automatic controls that reduced the plane's lift when it was hit by an upward gust, increased it when hit by a down draft. The system worked well, but commercial aircraft builders considered it too heavy and expensive−a decision that still infuriates Kraft. "It makes me madder than hell when I fly and have to bounce around," he complains. "I know it isn't necessary. And all I can see are the stresses in the wings."
While at Langley, Kraft married his high school classmate Betty Anne Turnbull. He had time in those days to play some semi-pro softball until Betty Anne insisted that he either improve or quit. He quit. He was also frustrated by the slow and relatively unexciting pace of work at Langley, became increasingly restless, and developed a serious stomach ulcer.