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Scott Crossfield's C210 missing
- Thread starter SiuDude
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onthebeach
Well-known member
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- Nov 25, 2001
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- 240
Yeager wasn't the first.
George Welch (another civilian test pilot) was the first man to break the sound barrier.
Judge the evidence for yourself:
http://home.att.net/~historyzone/Welch2.html
At the end of the article, the author gives an address you can write to give George Welch his due. I would ask that everyone do so. Maybe an unjustice that's been covered over for almost sixty years can be corrected.
George Welch (another civilian test pilot) was the first man to break the sound barrier.
Judge the evidence for yourself:
http://home.att.net/~historyzone/Welch2.html
At the end of the article, the author gives an address you can write to give George Welch his due. I would ask that everyone do so. Maybe an unjustice that's been covered over for almost sixty years can be corrected.
onthebeach
Well-known member
- Joined
- Nov 25, 2001
- Posts
- 240
Yeager wasn't the first
George Welch (another civilian test pilot) was the first man to break the sound barrier.
Judge the evidence for yourself:
http://home.att.net/~historyzone/Welch2.html
At the end of the article, the author gives an address you can write to give George Welch his due. I would ask that everyone do so. Maybe an unjustice that's been covered over for almost sixty years can be corrected.
George Welch (another civilian test pilot) was the first man to break the sound barrier.
Judge the evidence for yourself:
http://home.att.net/~historyzone/Welch2.html
At the end of the article, the author gives an address you can write to give George Welch his due. I would ask that everyone do so. Maybe an unjustice that's been covered over for almost sixty years can be corrected.
Crossfield was a true gentleman, here are two quotes from an article. There's a difference between what he says and that other pilot of note.
"We keep talking about test pilots, but there is no such thing as a 'test pilot,"' Crossfield said in a 1988 interview with Aviation Week & Space Technology. "They are all just people who incidentally do flight tests. ... We should divest ourselves of this idea of special people (being) heroes, if you please, because really they do not exist."
"I am an aeronautical engineer, an aerodynamicist and a designer," he told Aviation Week & Space Technology. "My flying was only primarily because I felt that it was essential to designing and building better airplanes for pilots to fly."
Compared with....
Yeager, reached at his home in California, said he was "sure sorry to hear" about Crossfield's death, but he wondered whether the pilot's penchant for taking risks might have been his undoing. During their days as test pilots, he said Crossfield "being a civilian, had a lot more freedom than we did, as military guys. Sometimes he exceeded his capability and got in trouble."
Asked for an example, the 83-year-old Yeager said: "Flying in weather that he should have never been in."
Which guy would you more care to emulate?
Fly Safe!
Lilah
"We keep talking about test pilots, but there is no such thing as a 'test pilot,"' Crossfield said in a 1988 interview with Aviation Week & Space Technology. "They are all just people who incidentally do flight tests. ... We should divest ourselves of this idea of special people (being) heroes, if you please, because really they do not exist."
"I am an aeronautical engineer, an aerodynamicist and a designer," he told Aviation Week & Space Technology. "My flying was only primarily because I felt that it was essential to designing and building better airplanes for pilots to fly."
Compared with....
Yeager, reached at his home in California, said he was "sure sorry to hear" about Crossfield's death, but he wondered whether the pilot's penchant for taking risks might have been his undoing. During their days as test pilots, he said Crossfield "being a civilian, had a lot more freedom than we did, as military guys. Sometimes he exceeded his capability and got in trouble."
Asked for an example, the 83-year-old Yeager said: "Flying in weather that he should have never been in."
Which guy would you more care to emulate?
Fly Safe!
Lilah
FlyingFisherman
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- Jul 8, 2005
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- 198
mcjohn said:
You're kidding, right?
Sound barrier isn't that big of a deal.
Think of how many people rode on Concorde. That's Mach 2+
How many THOUSANDS of fighter pilots throughout just this country since the dawn of the jet age have gone through Mach 1.
Compare that to the few hundred Astronaut pins given out.
A Squared
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- Nov 26, 2001
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- 3,006
mcjohn said:
I don't think you're thinking about this, bud. *most* (if not all) fighters since the F-100 (early 1950's) have been able to break the sound barrier in level flight. Many earlier ones were capable of doing it in a dive. I would guess that *every* pilot who was an operational fighter pilot in the last 4 to 5 decades has broken the sound barrier, numerous times. That would be a whole bunch. tens of thousands, I would imagine.
mcjohn
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FlyingFisherman
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Grumman guy
Type and Altitude unknown
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Bummed out to hear about Crossfield. I first saw him on an interview talking about his part in the X-15. The guy was real modest and cool. he must have been in his 70's at the time but he was still mentally razor sharp. I don't really read alot of aviation history anymore, like i did when i was a kid. But if I looked up to any of the old pilots, it would be Crossfield. I read yeagers book when i was like 10 and I could tell even then, that he was an egomaniac A-hole. I guess hes not mellowing out with age
His C210 broke up in mid-air
I talked to the CAP ground team leader that found the wreckage yesterday and he mentioned that parts of the 210 were found 2 miles from the main site. He also talked to an eye witness that saw the aircraft "tumbling out of the air". The eye witness didn't bother to call 911 after seeing what was obviously an aircraft crash!
Someone in another thread mentioned that he was pretty certain that the aircraft failed Scott and not the other way around. Sounds like he was right.
I talked to the CAP ground team leader that found the wreckage yesterday and he mentioned that parts of the 210 were found 2 miles from the main site. He also talked to an eye witness that saw the aircraft "tumbling out of the air". The eye witness didn't bother to call 911 after seeing what was obviously an aircraft crash!
Someone in another thread mentioned that he was pretty certain that the aircraft failed Scott and not the other way around. Sounds like he was right.
AngelKing
Previous Aviation V.J.
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- 350
The 210 he was in was a 1960 model which had been in an accident before.
http://www.ntsb.gov/ntsb/brief.asp?ev_id=39641&key=0#
Not infering anything from that, just FYI. And there were a lot of thundersorms in that area.
RIP
http://www.ntsb.gov/ntsb/brief.asp?ev_id=39641&key=0#
Not infering anything from that, just FYI. And there were a lot of thundersorms in that area.
RIP
banned username 2
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SiuDude
Internet tough guy
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- Sep 9, 2004
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Doesn't look good. Level 5's within 10 miles of his ground track:
http://www.rap.ucar.edu/weather/rad...=black&endDate=20060419&endTime=16&duration=0
http://www.rap.ucar.edu/weather/rad...=black&endDate=20060419&endTime=16&duration=0
mcjohn
Well-known member
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- Jan 23, 2005
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So you take that and mix it with this:
http://flightaware.com/live/flight/N6579X
Considering he was filed to fly 11 thousand, and the direction that I remember the storm moving follows the direction of that southeasterly hook at the end of the line, you maybe can see how quickly and where the plane might have broken up.
User546
The Ultimate Show Stopper
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- Jan 24, 2004
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I've heard so much mentioned the last few days about Crossfield and him breaking the Mach 2 barrier.
Lets not forget as well, that he also had 14 flights in the awesome X-15 aircraft. That's worth some recognition in my opinion!
EDITED: Removed inaccurate statement. Thanks mzaharis for the correction!
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Lets not forget as well, that he also had 14 flights in the awesome X-15 aircraft. That's worth some recognition in my opinion!
EDITED: Removed inaccurate statement. Thanks mzaharis for the correction!
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Last edited:
User546
The Ultimate Show Stopper
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Here's a photo currently posted on Chuck Yeager's website of Scott taken two days before his final flight.
"This photo was taken Monday afternoon at the Prattville, AL, airport just after he'd landed. He had come down to Maxwell AFB to speak to the new 2nd Lts. on Tuesday. He took off Wednesday morning to go home."
http://www.chuckyeager.com/
"This photo was taken Monday afternoon at the Prattville, AL, airport just after he'd landed. He had come down to Maxwell AFB to speak to the new 2nd Lts. on Tuesday. He took off Wednesday morning to go home."
http://www.chuckyeager.com/
mzaharis
Well-known member
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- Sep 27, 2004
- Posts
- 541
User997 said:
No - he never got above Mach 3 in the X-15. He was a test pilot for North American, and his job was to qualify the aircraft for delivery to NASA. They didn't want a contractor pilot to get all the glory (although landing with a full tank that broke its back, and his surviving the explosion on the ground test, qualified him as a steely eyed test pilot in my eyes!).
I especially like that first story - one of the engines exploded at the beginning of a flight, and he had to land the thing with a considerable amount of rocket fuel still on board. It was so heavy, it split in half on landing.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_X-15_flights
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