Should you have an interest in the X-1 story the best book available is "Into The Unknown" by Louis Rotundo, the transfer of the aircraft from Bell to the USAAC is a complicated one and is forthcoming in telling the Goodlin $150,000 story is myth as being a reason for the transfer.Re the PM, Yeager is quite specific in the video above that he made 40 flights in the NF-104, the fact is he didn't, only making 3½ flights, the ½ because he lost control at apogee and ejected. Listening to him in the video one gets the impression he was running the NF-104 program, in fact he had absolutely nothing to do with it, other than making an attempt, as an interloper, on the altitude record so as to carve another notch. The altitude record made by the assigned test pilot was never ratified, presumably because another couldn't take a bow where the greatest test pilot that ever lived failed. The NF-104 link will give the whole story. 10,000' was added to the altitude that Yeager did actually reach, I guess so he could do a Maxwell Smart.