Fitzhugh Fulton
Fitzhugh L. "Fitz" Fulton Jr. (born June 6, 1925 in Blakely , Georgia , United States ; † February 4, 2015 in Thousand Oaks ) was an award-winning US test pilot who worked for the US Air Force and NASA worked. Among other things, he tested most of the military transport aircraft and bombers developed in the United States in the 1950s and 1960s, and was involved in the development of the space shuttle . In total, he completed over 16,000 flight hours in over 230 different aircraft.
biography
Fitzhugh L. Fulton Jr. was born on June 6, 1925 in Blakely , Georgia . He studied first at Auburn University , then at the University of Oklahoma and finally at Golden Gate University , where he obtained a Bachelor of Arts degree .
1943 to 1966: US Air Force
In 1943 Fulton joined the United States Army Air Forces . After his training in their flight school, his first operational missions took place from January to May 1945 with bombers of the Consolidated B-24 type . Fulton flew in a Douglas C-54 to the Kwajalein atoll in 1946 to support the nuclear tests there. In December of the same year he again supported the first landing of a B-29 of the First Air Transport Unit in Germany with a C-54 . In 1948 and 1949, during the Berlin blockade , Fulton was used for the Berlin Airlift . He flew a total of 225 times so-called “ raisin bombers ”, also of the type C-54, into the encircled Berlin. During the Korean War , he made 55 military missions in a Douglas B-26 over North Korea. For the missions in Germany and Korea he was awarded a Distinguished Flying Cross and a total of five Air Medals .
In 1952 he completed his training at the Air Force's test pilot school and from then on served as a test pilot in the air force of his home country. One of the projects he was involved in was the development of the Convair B-58 supersonic bomber. With this, Fulton set an altitude record when he brought the aircraft with a payload of 11,023 pounds (about 5,000 kg ) to 85,360 feet (about 26,000 m ). For work on the B-58 program, Fulton received the Harmon International Aviation Trophy in 1962 . In addition, the Air Force assigned Fulton as the pilot of a B-52 from which various experimental aircraft were launched in the air, such as the test aircraft X-15 . His achievements as a test pilot in the Air Force were awarded a total of three other Distinguished Flying Crosses .
After 23 years of service, Fulton left the Air Force in 1966. He had last held the post of Chief of Bomber Transport Test Operations Division at Edwards Air Force Base and now moved to NASA's Dryden Flight Research Center , which is also located at Edwards Air Force Base is.
1966 to 1986: NASA
After moving to NASA, Fulton's area of responsibility remained partially unchanged: He still controlled large machines such as B-29 , B-50 or B-52 bombers , from which various rocket planes were launched in the air, including the test types X- 1 , X-2 , X-15, M-2, HL-10 and X-24 . In the late 1960s, he undertook test flights with the experimental supersonic bomber XB-70 , with which he reached speeds above Mach 3, both for joint projects by NASA and the Air Force and for pure NASA tests . Between 1969 and 1978 it was used for the development of the YF-12 interceptor , with which it reached speeds of up to 1,800 knots (about 3,333 km / h ) and altitudes of around 80,250 feet (about 24,460 m) in order to use flight data for future development Collect planes.
Fulton was also the pilot of the Shuttle Carrier Aircraft (SCA), a converted Boeing 747 , with which the space shuttles are transported. During the Approach and Landing Tests (ALT) in 1977, the SCA was first used to piggyback the prototype space shuttle Enterprise to an altitude of about 25,000 feet and decouple it there, allowing the space shuttle to fly in the atmosphere and landing could be tested in practice. For his work as a pilot of the SCA in the ALT program, Fulton was awarded the Exceptional Service Medal from NASA and the Iven C. Kincheloe Award from the Society of Experimental Test Pilots as Test Pilot of the Year 1977. The Exceptional Service Medal was awarded to him again in 1983 because he had transported the Enterprise with the SCA to various European countries, where it was exhibited at aviation shows. After the orbital flights of the Space Shuttles began in 1981, Fulton continued to pilot the SCA, which brought the space shuttles from the landing pad back to the Kennedy Space Center .
In 1984 Fulton steered a remote-controlled Boeing 720 from a control station on the ground for the Controlled Impact Demonstration (CID) - by 2012 the largest aircraft ever to be flown remotely. The CID program culminated on December 1, 1984, when the aircraft was deliberately crashed in Rogers Dry Lake , part of the Mojave Desert , in order to be able to test a fire suppressant fuel additive in a crash scenario under real conditions. Although the test was a success from an aeronautical point of view, the hoped-for effect of the fuel additive did not materialize.
Two years later, Fulton quit his job at NASA. Most recently he was Chief Test Pilot for the Aerospace Agency.
Since 1986: Scaled Composites and retirement
That same year, Fulton became a test pilot at Scaled Composites , a US company that develops aircraft prototypes and tests them near Edwards Air Force Base. Here he took on the positions of Flight Operations Director and Chief Research Pilot . For the company he was the pilot of the maiden flights of the Scaled Composites ATTT and Scaled Composites Triumph . In 1989 he retired. In 1991 he was inducted into the Aerospace Walk of Honor and in 1999 into the National Aviation Hall of Fame .
Fulton died in 2015 at the age of 89.
Honors
- Distinguished Flying Cross of the United States Armed Forces (awarded four times)
- Air Medal of the United States (five times awarded)
- Exceptional Service Medal from NASA (two awards)
- Iven C. Kincheloe Award from the Society of Experimental Test Pilots as Test Pilot of the Year
- Aerospace Walk of Honor
- National Aviation Hall of Fame
Web links
- Biography of Fitz Fulton at NASA
- Biography of Fitz Fulton in the National Aviation Hall of Fame
- Biography of Fitz Fulton on the Aerospace Walk of Honor
Individual evidence
- ↑ a b Lt. Col. Fizhugh L. "Fitz" Fulton, Jr., USAF. (No longer available online.) In: Internet pages of the Aerospace Walk of Honor . Archived from the original on December 14, 2010 ; accessed on December 16, 2010 (English). Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.
- ↑ a b Fitzhugh "Fitz" Fulton. In: National Aviation Hall of Fame website . Retrieved December 16, 2010 .
- ^ Fitzhugh L. Fulton Jr. In: NASA website . Retrieved December 16, 2010 .
- ↑ FAA (Ed.): Summary Report - Full-Scale Transport Controlled Impact Demonstration Program . 1987, p. 46 ( nasa.gov [PDF; 5.5 MB ; accessed on May 9, 2010] FAA final report on Controlled Impact Demonstration ).
- ^ NASA: Fitz Fulton's Unparalleled Lifetime of Achievement in Flight Research .
| personal data | |
|---|---|
| SURNAME | Fulton, Fitzhugh |
| ALTERNATIVE NAMES | Fitz (nickname); Fulton, Fitzhugh L. Jr. |
| BRIEF DESCRIPTION | American test pilot |
| DATE OF BIRTH | June 6, 1925 |
| PLACE OF BIRTH | Blakely , Georgia |
| DATE OF DEATH | 4th February 2015 |
| Place of death | Thousand Oaks |