Way to live life Mr. Crossfield! You'll be missed.
A little more info please....He was flying his own plane and crashed?
At least he died doing something he loved instead of infirm and warehoused in a nursing home.
I know virtually nothing about piloting planes or national statistics on small plane crashes. However, I do know that roughly half the people who I personally have known in my life who regularly pilot private small planes have died in plane crashes. I wouldn't regularly fly small planes as an amatuer in a million years.
Prayers for him and his family.
How ironic - survive a crash in an X-15 carrying pretty much a full load of fuel, only to die in a private plane crash.
Scott, you were one of my heros.
How very sad.
Sad news. Rest In Peace, hero.
Very ugly flying weather in the Atlanta area yesterday by all reports. RIP for a legend.
Old pilots never die. They just fly below the radar.
Way to live life Mr. Crossfield! You'll be missed.
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
Now he REALLY gets to "touch the face of God".
ping
Godspeed
Truly...The Right Stuff
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.
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.
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.
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...