Frank Kendall Everest, Jr.

Frank Kendell "Pete" Everest Jr.

Brigadier General Frank Kendell "Pete" Everest Jr. (* 9. August 1920 in Fairmont , West Virginia ; † 1. October 2004 ) was an American officer of the Air Force of the United States . He became known as an aeronautical engineer and test pilot in the 1950s .

education

Frank Kendell "Pete" Everest was born in Fairmont. He finished high school there in 1938 and then attended Fairmont State College for a year. He then studied engineering at West Virginia University to prepare for a career in the aircraft industry. In 1956 he graduated from Armed Forces Staff College in Norfolk .

Military career

Everest joined the United States Army Air Forces as a student pilot on November 11, 1941 and completed his military training on July 3, 1942. Among his classmates was the flying ace Robert S. Johnson. After training on the Curtiss P-40 , he was relocated to North Africa. He participated in 94 military missions in Africa and Italy. On April 18, 1943, he shot down two German Junkers Ju 52s and damaged another one. In May 1944 he continued his service in Venice, Florida . After a while he was transferred to the India-Burma theater of war . There he took part in 67 military missions and shot down four Japanese aircraft before being shot down by air defense itself in May 1945 . He was captured and tortured by the Japanese. After the war he returned to the USA.

In February 1946 he was a test pilot at Wright-Patterson Air Force Base and used there in the extensive flight tests with the Bell X-1 . Here he set an unofficial altitude record of 73,000 ft. (22,300 m).

In September 1951, Everest was transferred to the Air Force Flight Test Center at Edwards Air Force Base , California , and became chief test pilot and head of the flight testing division. He was involved in testing the X-1, X-2, X-3, X-4 and X-5, XF-92 and YB-52 . The other machines he flown included the XF-88 , F-100 , F-101 , F-102 , F-104 and F-105 , as well as B-57 and B-66 . On October 29, 1953, he set a speed record of 755.149 mph (1210 km / h) with the YF-100.

In December 1954, Everest achieved a speed of Mach 2.3 as a test pilot with the Bell X-1B , which made him the second fastest person in the world. He was the first person to reach Mach 2.9 (1957 mph) on a later flight in the Bell X-2 rocket plane .

He was transferred to Hahn Air Base in Germany in March 1957 . Then in January 1961 he was appointed commander of the "401st Tactical Fighter Wing" stationed at England Air Base in Louisiana . He later worked in various posts at other air bases in the United States.

Literature and Sources

• United States Air Force - Frank Kendall Everest, Jr.