Albert Scott Crossfield
(Albert) Scott Crossfield Jr. (born October 2, 1921 in Berkeley , California , † April 19, 2006 near Atlanta , Georgia ) was an American test pilot . He completed 14 flights in the X-15 program as a test pilot for North American Aviation .
Life
Scott Crossfield grew up in California and Washington state . During the Second World War he served in the US Navy as a flight instructor and fighter pilot. From 1946 to 1950 he studied aeronautical engineering at the University of Washington . He then went to Edwards Air Force Base as a research pilot on the National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics (NACA) .
For the next five years he flew types X-1 , XF-92 , X-4 , X-5 , Douglas D-558-I Skystreak and Douglas D-558-II Skyrocket, among others .
On November 20, 1953, he set a new speed record with a D-558-II suspended from under a bomber. At 2,078 km / h, he was the first person to reach twice the speed of sound .
From 1955 he worked as a test pilot for North American Aviation. During this time he was selected by the United States Air Force for the Man In Space Soonest (MISS) project, which aimed at a manned space flight. After the founding of NASA , this project was discontinued, but Crossfield was thus one of the first space travelers selection in history.
At North American Aviation, Crossfield played a pivotal role in the development of the X-15 supersonic missile aircraft . He was one of the twelve X-15 pilots and the only one from North American. On June 8, 1959, he carried out the first gliding flight with this type, on September 17, 1959, the first self-propelled flight. On his fourth flight on November 5, 1959, he had to make an emergency landing. The machine broke, but Crossfield was unharmed. He made his last X-15 flight on December 6, 1960.
Crossfield then worked as a quality assurance manager at North American. Among other things, he was responsible for the tests of the Apollo spacecraft , which was manufactured by North American.
From 1967 Crossfield worked for Eastern Air Lines , from 1974 to 1975 for Hawker-Siddeley . From 1977 until his retirement in 1993, Crossfield served as a technical advisor to the Science and Technology Committee of the US House of Representatives .
From 2001 to 2003 he trained four pilots on a replica of the Wright brothers' flyer . A repeat of the historic flight was planned for its 100th anniversary, but the event had to be canceled due to the weather.
On April 19, 2006, Crossfield took off with its single-engine Cessna 210 A from the airfield in Prattville , Alabama . His destination was Manassas , Virginia . The 84-year-old was killed in a forest area in Gordon County , Georgia , during a storm .
Scott Crossfield was married with six children.
literature
- Albert Scott Crossfield, Clay Blair , Werner Büdeler : Test pilot of the X-15 , A. Müller 1962
- Scott Crossfield, Richard Tregaskis: X-15 Diary: The Story of America's First Space Ship , Bison Books 2004, ISBN 0-8032-9456-5
Web links
- Original NACA press release on the Mach 2 flight (English; PDF; 1.9 MB)
- X-15 pilot biography ( Memento from October 9, 2006 in the Internet Archive ) (English)
- Statement by NASA to Crossfields death (English)
| personal data | |
|---|---|
| SURNAME | Crossfield, Albert Scott |
| ALTERNATIVE NAMES | Crossfield, Scott |
| BRIEF DESCRIPTION | American test pilot |
| DATE OF BIRTH | October 2, 1921 |
| PLACE OF BIRTH | Berkeley |
| DATE OF DEATH | April 19, 2006 |
| Place of death | Atlanta |