--- title: "A P-59 test pilot’s gorilla mask and cigar launched America’s Jet Age" date: "2026-10-10" modified: "2026-10-10" authors: - name: "Daniel Tobias Flint" job_title: "Contributor, US History Teacher" link: "https://www.wearethemighty.com/authors/daniel-flint.md" url: "https://www.wearethemighty.com/history/a-p-59-test-pilots-gorilla-mask-and-cigar-launched-americas-jet-age/" categories: - "History" - "War History" tags: - "Aircraft" - "Military History" - "World War II" --- # A P-59 test pilot’s gorilla mask and cigar launched America’s Jet Age ![bell aircraft jack woolams]() *Not pictured: Gorilla mask, cigar, bow tie, or bowler hat.* As a U.S. history teacher, I have learned something over the years: sometimes the stories that are not in the curriculum are the stories that make students want to learn the curriculum. Every teacher knows the feeling. You can spend hours building a carefully structured lesson, aligning it to standards, finding primary sources, creating activities, and preparing the perfect presentation. **Also Read: [The immense challenge of teaching World War II in 270 minutes]()** Then, somewhere in the middle of the lesson, a student asks a question that takes the entire class in a completely unexpected direction. Sometimes, that question becomes the moment when the students finally lean forward in their seats. That is one of the reasons I love the strange, unusual, and sometimes downright unbelievable stories of American history. World War II is filled with them. It was a war that forced nations to innovate at an incredible pace. Technologies that had seemed futuristic only a few years earlier suddenly became military necessities. Engineers, scientists, soldiers, sailors, airmen, and pilots were constantly experimenting with ways to build something faster, stronger, farther reaching, or more effective than what had come before. Sometimes, those experiments produced stories that sound like something a Hollywood screenwriter invented. Imagine walking across a California airfield during World War II and seeing an aircraft unlike anything you had ever seen before. It had no propeller. It was powered by jet engines. It looked strange, sounded different, and represented an entirely new era of aviation. Then imagine looking into the cockpit and seeing the pilot wearing a gorilla mask, a bowler hat, and smoking a cigar. That's how Jack Woolams tested America's first jet aircraft. ![jet age gorilla mask]() ### America Enters the Jet Age To understand why Woolams's story and the Bell P-59 Airacomet is so fascinating, it helps to understand just how revolutionary jet propulsion was during World War II. By the early 1940s, the airplane had already transformed warfare. Aircraft such as the P-51 Mustang, P-47 Thunderbolt, and P-38 Lightning were incredibly important components of U.S. air power. Piston engine aircraft were faster, more capable, and more refined than the airplanes of the previous generation, but engineers were looking beyond propellers. Instead of relying on a propeller driven by a piston engine, a jet engine compressed air, mixed it with fuel, and ignited the mixture, producing thrust. The concept had enormous potential, but was still experimental. Germany moved aggressively on this technology, producing the Messerschmitt Me 262—the world's first operational jet fighter—and the Arado Ar 234 an operational jet-powered reconnaissance and bomber aircraft. Britain developed the Gloster Meteor, which entered service near the end of the war, and Japan also experimented with jet aircraft. The United States, however, approached the technology more cautiously. That decision made sense in the context of the war. America already had an enormous aircraft production program underway, because conventional fighters and bombers were desperately needed. There was little reason to divert enormous resources away from proven technology when the United States was producing thousands of aircraft already flying combat missions. But U.S. military leaders also understood the jet engine could represent the future. On Feb. 25, 1941, General Henry “Hap” Arnold directed Vannevar Bush to establish a special committee to investigate jet propulsion. American scientists, engineers, military officials, universities, and industrial companies began working together to determine whether the United States could develop its own jet engine. Then came an important breakthrough. In 1941, Arnold traveled to Britain and witnessed the British Gloster E.28/39 experimental aircraft flying with Frank Whittle's jet engine. What he saw convinced American officials that jet propulsion was not simply some theoretical technology sitting on an engineer's drawing board. It worked. The question was whether America could build it. ### A Secret Airplane With a Fake Propeller The answer came through an unusual partnership between General Electric and Bell Aircraft. The British shared information about Whittle's jet engine with the United States, and General Electric was selected to develop an American version. Bell Aircraft built the airplane around it. There was an obvious problem: how to secretly build an airplane that looks completely different from every other airplane on the airfield. The solution was almost comical. It was designated the XP-59A, partly intended to disguise what Bell was actually building because P-59 had originally been associated with a conventional piston engine fighter project. The aircraft itself was also disguised. The first XP-59A was transported to Muroc Dry Lake in California, for testing. A dummy propeller was placed on the front of the aircraft, and a tarpaulin helped conceal the unusual shape. If someone saw the airplane from a distance, they might assume it was simply another conventional aircraft. Except it wasn't. Underneath the disguise was America's first jet aircraft. ![bell p-59 airacomet]() *(U.S. Air Force)* On Oct. 1, 1942, Bell test pilot Robert M. Stanley made the first official flight of the XP-59A. The aircraft initially flew only a short distance above the ground, but soon the airplane was climbing higher and demonstrating that the United States had entered the jet age. The airplane was far from perfect. Its early General Electric engines produced relatively little power, and the XP-59A was not dramatically faster than many of the best piston engine fighters already in American service. In fact, some conventional fighters were faster. But speed was not the only purpose of the airplane: It was a teacher. American pilots needed to learn how jet aircraft behaved, how jet engines performed, how pilots reacted to them, how maintenance crews worked with them, and how future aircraft should be designed. The U.S. was essentially learning how to operate in an entirely new era of aviation, and every flight provided engineers and pilots with information to improve the next aircraft. That brings us to Jack Woolams and one of the most entertaining stories associated with the program. ### Enter the Gorilla ![p-59-test-pilot gorilla mask jet age]() *(U.S. Air Force)* Jack Woolams was a civilian test pilot working for Bell Aircraft, who (bizarrely) sometimes flew the secret jet while wearing a gorilla mask, a bowler or derby hat, and smoking a cigar. Picture that scene in the context of 1942: The U.S. is in the middle of a world war and secretly developing the first jet aircraft. Engineers are trying to understand a revolutionary new propulsion system. The airplane has no propeller. The military wants to keep the technology secret. And the test pilot is sitting in the cockpit looking like a cigar-smoking gorilla. It sounds so ridiculous that you almost have to ask whether it really happened. The story has also been retold over the years in slightly different forms—another reason it is worth presenting carefully to students. Historians have to distinguish between what is firmly documented and what survives through later recollections and popular retellings. But whether students remember every detail of the disguise or not, the story accomplishes something incredibly important in a history classroom: it makes them curious. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E_Swps3RFH8 ### Starting With “Wait...What?” This is where I believe stories like this become incredibly valuable for U.S. history educators. This may not be what the curriculum specifically tells us we have to teach. There is no standard that says I have to stop in the middle of a World War II lesson and tell my students about a civilian test pilot wearing a gorilla mask while flying America's first jet aircraft. But sometimes, in order to hook your students, you have to give them something they never expected to hear. Students enjoy hearing about the crazy things Americans did during wartime to test new technologies. They want to know about the experiments, the risks, the failures, the unusual personalities, and the moments when someone looked at a problem and said, essentially, “Let's try this.” That is where history becomes human. Suddenly, what was once old is now crazy new. To us, the Bell P-59 is an artifact from the 1940s. It is now nearly a century old. Students can look at a photograph of it and see an old airplane sitting in a museum. But imagine being an American engineer in 1942. Powered by jet engines and having no propeller, it is something that could fundamentally change aviation. Suddenly, the old airplane sitting in a museum becomes something completely different. It becomes a crazy new technology. That change in perspective is exactly what I want my students to experience when they study history. The things we look at today as old, outdated, or even primitive were once cutting edge. The people who lived through those moments did not know how their experiments would turn out. They were living through the process of change just as we are today. ### The P-59 Wasn't America's Greatest Fighter ![bell-p-59-airacomet-in-flight]() *(U.S. Air Force)* There is another important lesson inside the story of the P-59: The Army eventually ordered production aircraft, but the P-59 never saw combat during World War II. Only 50 were completed, consisting of 20 P-59As and 30 P-59Bs. Its performance was underwhelming, with a maximum speed of around 409 miles per hour at 35,000 feet, and an armament of one 37mm cannon and three .50-caliber machine guns. The P-59 was assigned to the 412th Fighter Group, where pilots gained experience with jet tech rather than flying it against the Luftwaffe. At first glance, that might make the airplane seem like a failure. But this is where history becomes interesting: The P-59 did not need to dominate the skies to be historically important. It needed to teach the United States how to build and fly jets. The aircraft gave pilots and engineers valuable experience that would influence the development of later American jet aircraft, becoming part of the transition between two technological eras. The airplane itself was not the destination, it was the bridge. That is an incredibly important concept for students to understand when studying technological change. Not every invention becomes a spectacular success. Some exist primarily to teach the people who build them what to do next. ### From a Gorilla Mask to the Future of Aviation The story also provides a wonderful opportunity to discuss the broader technological race of World War II. The United States was not first to operationalize a jet fighter. Germany's Me 262 reached combat service before America's jet program produced an effective combat aircraft. But the United States was developing the industrial, scientific, and engineering infrastructure that would eventually allow it to become a dominant force in postwar aviation. The P-59 was one small piece of that much larger story. That is why the P-59 belongs in the history classroom, not necessarily because students need to memorize its top speed or production numbers, but because the airplane provides a tangible example of how innovation happens. Innovation is messy, experimental, and involves failure. Sometimes it involves a guy in a gorilla mask. ### The Hook One of the most important lessons I have learned as an educator is that students do not always become interested in history because we tell them that something is important. Sometimes we have to give them a reason to care. That reason can be a photograph, a primary source, a veteran's story, a strange historical object, a piece of technology, a powerful human story, or, yes, even a story about a gorilla flying a jet. Once students become curious, the teacher has an opening. The student who initially had no interest in 1940s aviation may suddenly want to know who Jack Woolams was. Then they want to know why America was building jets. Then they want to know why Germany had jets first. Suddenly, we are no longer simply talking about an old airplane; We are talking about World War II, American industry, scientific research, military strategy, international competition, technological innovation, secrecy, aviation, and the transition to a new era of warfare. A historical hook gives students a reason to ask questions, and questions are where real learning begins. As U.S. history educators, we are sometimes so focused on getting through the curriculum, preparing students for assessments, and making sure we cover every required standard that we can forget one of the most important parts of teaching history: getting students excited about the past. Our students are surrounded by technology that seemed impossible to previous generations. They live in a world of artificial intelligence, smartphones, autonomous systems, reusable spacecraft, and technologies that sounded like science fiction only a few decades ago. It can be difficult for them to understand that the people of the 1940s experienced that same sense of wonder when encountering technologies that were completely new to them. To today's students, the P-59 is old, but to the students sitting in my classroom, the idea that someone could climb into America's first jet aircraft wearing a gorilla mask suddenly makes the history of aviation a whole lot more interesting. Now I have them. I can take that curiosity and connect it back. Sometimes you just have to start with the gorilla. **Don’t Miss the Best of We Are The Mighty** **• [This test pilot dressed as a gorilla to mess with other Air Force pilots]()** **• [‘Independence Day:’ Why the ’90s blockbuster still gets our patriotic blood pumping]()** **• [The material that forever changed modern warfare]()** ## Author Daniel Tobias Flint is a professionally certified U.S. History teacher based in Jacksonville, Florida, with more than 20 years of experience in the classroom and has built a career centered on bringing the past to life for students through rigorous, engaging, and innovative instruction. His teaching passions include the Civil War, Reconstruction, and World War II, with a constant focus on exploring new approaches to deepen historical understanding. As a U.S. History educator, Flint views his work as a civic duty—to serve, protect, and defend the principles rooted in the U.S. Constitution. He is committed to ensuring that students understand the foundations of American democracy, the struggles that shaped the nation, and the responsibilities that come with citizenship. Flint’s close involvement with military veterans significantly enhances his teaching. He actively supports veteran programs within his community and integrates veterans’ perspectives and stories into his curriculum, offering students meaningful, real-world connections to U.S. history and its heroes. He invites learners and the public alike to explore compelling, behind-the-scenes accounts of America’s past and the individuals who shaped it. His mission is to serve the community by creating powerful, interactive lessons that illuminate critical and compelling aspects of U.S. history, cultivating a deeper understanding and respect for the nation’s journey to the present day. His vision is to educate the public about local, state, and national history in order to foster a renewed appreciation for the past and inspire a commitment to building a brighter future. ### Author social links [LinkedIn]() [Youtube]()