Legendary pilot Scott Crossfield's body found in plane wreckage.

CNN/AP | 4/20/06

[Names Ash Housewares]

Breaking on CNN web page from AP report.

[nuconvert]

I know who he is. I hadn't heard about a crash.

[gondramB]

Very sad >>X-15 Pilots: Scott Crossfield

Scott Crossfield grew up in California and Washington. He served with the U.S. Navy as a flight instructor and fighter pilot during World War II.

...

Over the next five years, he flew nearly all of the experimental aircraft under test at Edwards, including the X-1, XF-92, X-4, X-5, D-558-I and the Douglas D-558-II Skyrocket.

On Nov. 20, 1953, he became the first man to fly at twice the speed of sound as he piloted the Skyrocket to a speed of 1,291 mph (Mach 2.005). With 99 flights in the rocket-powered X-1 and D-558-II, he had — by a wide margin — more experience with rocketplanes than any other pilot in the world by the time he left Edwards to join North American Aviation in 1955. As North American's chief engineering test pilot, he played a major role in the design and development of the X-15 and its systems. Once it was ready to fly, it was his job to demonstrate its airworthiness at speeds ranging up to Mach 3. Because the X-15 and its systems were unproven, these tests were considered extremely hazardous.

...

Among his countless honors, Scott Crossfield has received the Lawrence Sperry Award, Octave Chanute Award, Iven C. Kincheloe Award, Harmon International Trophy, and the Collier Trophy. He has been inducted into the National Aviation Hall of Fame (1983), the International Space Hall of Fame (1988), and the Aerospace Walk of Honor (1990).<<

http://www.edwards.af.mil/history/docs_html/people/pilot_crossfield.html

[Paradox]

Now he REALLY gets to "touch the face of God".

[2111USMC]

"When I die, I want to go peacefully in my sleep, like my grandfather, not screaming in terror like his passengers..."

ROTFLMAO!

[Professional Engineer]

ping

[SF Republican]

When it's your time - it's your time yea, but it would be a drag to be in a plane when its the pilots time.

[Blueflag]

He was in his Cessna 210 when he disappeared from radar near the N Ga town or Ranger, GA. Ranger is about 50 NNW of downtown Atlanta. HE was on his way to Va, his home.

Yesterday we had a severe sqalll line and IFR weather in NW Ga around the time of the crash. The highest tops, most rotation and most unstable lapse rates were in SE Tenn, NW GA, and the very W of NC. Ranger is just south of that area. The cells were moving roughly ESE.

The hilltops there are not all that high in Ranger, so I doubt this was controlled flight into terrain. I shouldn't speculate, and I'll get dinged for saying that much, but ... It was a good day to get into some really rough air, in the soup, get vertigo, and STP.

May he rest in peace. An aviation hero/legend.

[Dashing Dasher]

During this period Steen and Fox were killed trying a single-engine instrument approach at Moline. Then Campbell and Leatherman hit a ridge near Elko, Nevada. In both incidents the official verdict was 'pilot error,' but since their passengers, who were innocent of the controls, also failed to survive, it seemed that fate was the hunter. As it had been and would be.
- Ernest K. Gann, 'Fate is the Hunter'.

[Hegewisch Dupa]

Godspeed

[CROSSHIGHWAYMAN]

Truly...The Right Stuff

[dfwgator]

High Flight - John Gillespie Magee, Jr.

Oh! I have slipped the surly bonds of Earth
And danced the skies on laughter-silvered wings;
Sunward I’ve climbed, and joined the tumbling mirth
of sun-split clouds, —and done a hundred things
You have not dreamed of—wheeled and soared and swung
High in the sunlit silence. Hov’ring there,
I’ve chased the shouting wind along, and flung
My eager craft through footless halls of air....
Up, up the long, delirious, burning blue
I’ve topped the wind-swept heights with easy grace
Where never lark nor even eagle flew—
And, while with silent lifting mind I’ve trod
The high untrespassed sanctity of space,
Put out my hand, and touched the face of God.

[NormsRevenge]

Test Pilot's Body Said Found in Wreckage
DANIEL YEE, Associated Press Writer


http://news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&cid=519&ncid=519&e=2&u=/ap/20060420/ap_on_re_us/missing_plane

RANGER, Ga. - Legendary test pilot Scott Crossfield, the first man to fly at twice the speed of sound, was found dead Thursday in the wreckage of a single-engine plane in the mountains of northern Georgia, his son-in-law said.

Searchers discovered the wreckage of a small plane about 50 miles northwest of Atlanta, but the Civil Air Patrol didn't immediately identify the body inside.

Ed Fleming, Crossfield's son-in-law, told The Associated Press from Crossfield's home in Herndon, Va., that family had been told it was Crossfield.

Crossfield's Cessna was last spotted in the same area on Wednesday while on flight from Alabama to Virginia. There were thunderstorms in the area when officials lost radar and radio contact with the plane at 11:15 a.m., said Kathleen Bergen, a spokeswoman for the Federal Aviation Administration.

Crossfield, 84, had been one of a group of civilian pilots assembled by the National Advisory Committee on Aeronautics, the forerunner of NASA, in the early 1950s.

Air Force Capt. Chuck Yeager had already broken the speed of sound in his history-making flight in 1947. But Crossfield set the Mach 2 record — twice the speed of sound — in 1953, when he reached 1,300 mph in NACA's Douglas D-558-II Skyrocket.

In 1960, Crossfield reached Mach 2.97 in an X-15 rocket plane launched from a B-52 bomber. The plane reached an altitude of 81,000 feet. At the time, Crossfield was working as a pilot and design consultant for North American Aviation, which made the X-15. He later worked as an executive for Eastern Airlines and Hawker Siddley Aviation.

More recently, Crossfield had a key role in preparations for the attempt to re-enact the Wright brothers' flight on the 100th anniversary of their feat near Kitty Hawk, N.C. He trained four pilots for the Dec. 17, 2003, flight attempt in a replica of the brothers' flyer, but poor weather prevented the take-off.

Among his many honors, Crossfield was inducted into the National Aviation Hall of Fame in 1983.

On Wednesday, his plane had left Prattville, Ala., around 9 a.m. en route to Manassas, Va., not far from his home.

[Wally_Kalbacken]

At 84 the possibility that he had a stroke or a heart attack and died before crashing is not insignificant. Sorry to read this news.

[NormsRevenge]

Test Pilot Scott Crossfield is shown in this Nov. 20, 1953 file photo. A single-engine airplane registered to legendary test pilot Scott Crossfield, the first man to fly at Mach 2 and Mach 3, was missing Thursday, April 20, 2006, a day after it left Alabama for the Washington, D.C., area. The plane was last spotted on radar Wednesday in Georgia, north of Atlanta, the Civil Air Patrol's Georgia Wing said. (AP Photo/Douglas Air Craft, file)

[NormsRevenge]

Test Pilot Scott Crossfield sits in a centrifuge machine which duplicates the stress of extreme acceleration encountered by jet pilots at high altitudes, in this Feb. 28, 1958, file photo. A single-engine airplane registered to legendary test pilot Scott Crossfield, the first man to fly at Mach 2 and Mach 3, was missing Thursday, April 20, 2006, a day after it left Alabama for the Washington, D.C., area. The plane was last spotted on radar Wednesday in Georgia, north of Atlanta, the Civil Air Patrol's Georgia Wing said. (AP Photo/file)

[La Enchiladita]

Legendary Pilot Scott Crossfield Found Dead Among Plane Wreckage Thursday, April 20, 2006

Air Force Capt. Chuck Yeager had already broken the speed of sound in his history-making flight in 1947. But Crossfield set the Mach 2 record — twice the speed of sound — in 1953, when he reached 1,300 mph in NACA's Douglas D-558-II Skyrocket.

[jaydubya2]

An American Hero.

[Bean Counter]

What a shame.

Scott crossfield is truly one of the last living legends of Aviation in the World. If he had to go, on some level he probably wanted to go this way...

Prayers...

[NormsRevenge]

Test pilot Scott Crossfield uses his hands to demonstrate how his helmet was hitting the cockpit canopy as he took the X15 rocket plane through its first powered flight in this file photo from Sept. 17, 1959. A single-engine airplane registered to legendary test pilot Scott Crossfield, the first man to fly at Mach 2 and Mach 3, was missing Thursday, April 20, 2006, a day after it left Alabama for the Washington, D.C., area. The plane was last spotted on radar Wednesday in Georgia, north of Atlanta, the Civil Air Patrol's Georgia Wing said. (AP Photo/file)

[Dashing Dasher]

Scott crossfield is truly one of the last living legends of Aviation in the World.

Robert "Bob" A. Hoover (my favorite by a wide margin) and Chuck Yeager are still kicking also.

Bob Hoover was Yeager's Wingman when he broke Mach 1.