Tag Archives: High Speed Flight Station

Albert Scott Crossfield, Jr. (2 October 1921–19 April 2006)

Albert Scott Crossfield, aeronautical engineer and test pilot, 1921–2006. (Jet Pilot Overseas)
Albert Scott Crossfield, Jr., Aeronautical Engineer and Test Pilot, 1921–2006. (Jet Pilot Overseas)

Albert Scott Crossfield, Jr., was born at Berkeley, California, 2 October 1921, the second of three children of Albert Scott Crossfield and Lucia Dwyer Scott Crossfield. (“Scott Crossfield” is the family name, going back for many generations.) His father was a chemist who was the superintendent of the Union Oil Refinery in Wilmington, California. At the age of 5 years, the younger Scott Crossfield contracted pneumonia. He was comatose for a time and not expected to survive. When he finally began to recover, he was confined to bed for many months. The effects of this illness lasted throughout his childhood.

It was during this time that he developed his interest in aviation. He learned to draw, studied airplanes, and built scale models. Charles F. (“Carl”) Lienesch, who was a pilot for the Union Oil Company, gave Scotty his first ride aboard an airplane at age 6. As a teenager, he took flight lessons in an Inland Sportster at the Wilmington Airport.

Inland R400 Sportster NC267N, circa 1939. (William T. Larkins)

After his family bought a farm in Oregon, Scott Crossfield continued flight lessons and soloed a Curtis Robin at the age of 15. He earned his private pilot certificate at 18. After graduating from high school, “Scotty” helped his father with the family farm before attending the University of Washington as a student of aeronautical engineering. He took a job at Boeing to pay his tuition and support.

Ensign A. S. Crossfield, Jr.

After America’s entry into World War II, Scott Crossfield enlisted in the U.S. Army Air Corps as an aviation cadet, but because of expected delays in training, quickly transferred to the U.S. Navy. He enlisted as a Seaman 2/c in the Navy’s V-5 Program at the Naval Reserve Aviation Base, Seattle, Washington, on 21 February 1942. He began Primary Flight Training there, 7 May 1942. Scotty completed military flight training and was commissioned an Ensign, United States Navy, in December 1942.

On 21 April 1943, Ensign Albert Scott Crossfield, U.S. Navy, married Miss Alice Virginia Knoph at Corpus Christi, Texas.

Promoted to lieutenant (junior grade) with date of precedence 21 March 1944.

During World War II, Scott Crossfield served as a fighter pilot, flight and gunnery instructor, flying the Chance Vought F4U Corsair and Grumman F6F Hellcat. Though he was assigned to Fighting Squadron FIFTY-ONE (VF-51) aboard the Independence-class light aircraft carrier USS Langley (CVL-27), he did not serve in combat. He was promoted to the rank of lieutenant 1 August 1945. Scotty was released from active duty 31 December 1945. After the war he joined a Naval Reserve squadron and flew the Goodyear Aircraft Co. FG-1D Corsair at NAS Sand Point, Washington.

A Goodyear FG-1D Corsair, Bu. No. 92150, unfolding its wings at NAS Sand Point, circa late 1940s. The orange band around the fuselage shows that this airplane is assigned to a Naval Reserve squadron. (U.S. Navy)

During this time he resumed his education at the University of Washington and graduated with a bachelor’s degree in aeronautical engineering in 1949, and a master’s degree in 1950. As a graduate student he was the operator of the university’s Kirsten Aeronautical Laboratory wind tunnel.

The NACA High Speed Flight Station, 24 August 1954. The Boeing P2B-1S Superfortress is parked at the northeast corner of the ramp. (NASA)

In 1950 Scott Crossfield joined the National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics (NACA, the predecessor of NASA) as an Aeronautical Research Pilot at the NACA High Speed Flight Station, Edwards Air Force Base, California. He flew many high-performance jet aircraft like the North American Aviation F-100 Super Sabre, and experimental airplanes such as the Convair XF-92, Douglas X-3, Bell X-4 and X-5. He also flew the research rocket planes, making 10 rocket flights in the Bell X-1 and 77 in the Douglas D-558-II Skyrocket.

Douglas D-558-2 Bu. No. 37974 dropped from Boeing P2B-S1 Superfortress 84029, 1 January 1956. (NASA)
Douglas D-558-2 Skyrocket, Bu. No. 37974, is dropped from Boeing P2B-S1 Superfortress, Bu. No. 84029, 1 January 1956. (NASA)

On 20 November 1953, Scott Crossfield became the first pilot to fly faster than twice the speed of sound (Mach 2). The D-558-II was carried aloft by a Boeing P2B-1S Superfortress drop ship (a four-engine B-29 long range heavy bomber which had been transferred from the U.S. Air Force to the Navy, then heavily modified by Douglas) to 32,000 feet (9,754 meters) and then released. Scotty fired the LR8 rocket engine and climbed to 72,000 feet (21,945 meters). He put the Skyrocket into a shallow dive and, still accelerating, passed Mach 2 at 62,000 feet (18,898 meters). After the rocket engine’s fuel was expended, he flew the rocketplane to a glide landing on Rogers Dry Lake.

In 1955 Crossfield left NACA and joined North American Aviation, Inc., as Chief Engineering Test Pilot. He planned and participated in the design and operation of the X-15 hypersonic research rocketplane for the Air Force and NASA. He also worked closely with the David Clark Co., in the development of the project’s full-pressure suits.

Scott Crossfield testing an experimental David Clark Co. XMC-2 full-pressure suit in a thermal chamber at Wright Field. (Ralph Morse, LIFE Magazine/National Archives College Park Collection)

Milton O. Thompson, another X-15 test pilot, wrote in At the Edge of Space,

“. . . he was intimately involved in the design of the aircraft and contributed immensely to the success of the design, as a result of his extensive rocket airplane experience. . . Scott was responsible for a number of other excellent operational and safety features built into the aircraft. Thus, one might give Scott credit for much of the success of the flight program. . . .”

At the Edge of Space, by Milton O. Thompson, Smithsonian Institution Press, Washington and New York, 1992, at Page 3

Scott Crossfield, NAA Chief Engineering Test Pilot; Edmond Ross Cokeley, NAA Director of Flight Test;  and Charles H. Feltz, NAA Chief Engineer, with an X-15 hypersonic research rocketplane. (North American Aviation via Jet Pilot Overseas)

In 1959–1960, Scott Crossfield flew all of the contractor’s demonstration phase flights for the X-15, including 16 captive carry flights under the wing of the NB-52A Stratofortress while systems were tested and evaluated, one glide flight, and thirteen powered flights. He reached a a maximum altitude of 88,116 feet (26,858 meters) on Flight 6, and a maximum speed of Mach 2.97 (1,960 miles per hour/3,154 kilometers per hour) on Flight 26. The X-15 was then turned over to NASA and the Air Force. The X-15 Program involved a total of 199 flights from 1959 until 1968.

A. Scott Crossfield, wearing a David Clark Co. XMC-2 full-pressure suit, which he helped to design and test, with the first of three North American X-15s, 56-6670. (North American Aviation, Inc.)

After leaving the X-15 Program, Scott Crossfield continued as a Systems Director with North American Aviation, Inc., working on the Apollo Command and Service Module and the S-IVB second stage of the Saturn V rocket. He left North American in the late ’60s and served as an executive with Eastern Air Lines and Hawker Siddeley. He also continued as a aeronautical engineering consultant to private industry and government.

Among many other awards, Scott Crossfield was received the Harmon Trophy, the Collier Trophy, and the Iven C. Kincheloe Award of the Society of Experimental Test Pilots..

Scott Crossfield's 1962 Cessna 210A Centurion, photographed at Santa Monica Airport, California, 26 September 1999. (AirNikon Collection, Pima Air & Space Museum, Tucson, Arizona via airliners.net)
Scott Crossfield’s Cessna 210A Centurion, N6579X, photographed at Santa Monica Airport, California, 26 September 1999. (AirNikon Collection, Pima Air & Space Museum, Tucson, Arizona via airliners.net, used with permission)

In 1980 Crossfield resumed flying when he purchased a 1960 Cessna 210A Centurion, N6579X, serial number 21057579. This was a single-engine, four-place light airplane, powered by an air-cooled Continental six-cylinder engine. He had flown more than 2,000 hours in this airplane when it crashed during a severe thunderstorm, 19 April 2006, while on a flight from Prattville, Alabama, to Manassas, Virginia.

Albert Scott Crossfield, Jr., was killed. His remains are interred at the Arlington National Cemetery, Arlington, Virginia.

Albert Scott Crossfield, Jr., Test Pilot. (LIFE Magazine via Jet Pilot Overseas)

Highly recommended: Always Another Dawn: The Story Of A Rocket Test Pilot, by Albert Scott Crossfield and Clay Blair, Jr., The World Publishing Company, Cleveland and New York, 1960.

© 2018, Bryan R. Swopes

10 September 1956

North American Aviation North American Aviation F-107A S/N 55-5118 rolling out at Edwards Air Force base. (U.S. Air Force)
North American Aviation F-107A S/N 55-5118 rolling out at Edwards Air Force Base. (U.S. Air Force)
Joel Robert Baker (1920–2011). (Photograph courtesy of Neil Corbett)
Joel Robert Baker (1920–2011). (Photograph courtesy of Neil Corbett)

10 September 1956: North American Aviation test pilot Joel Robert (“Bob”) Baker made the first flight of the F-107A-NA 55-5118, a pre-production tactical fighter bomber, reaching a speed of Mach 1.03. On landing the drogue parachute did not deploy and due to the high speed on rollout, the nose gear strut collapsed, causing minor damage to the new aircraft.

The F-107A was designed as a Mach 2+ fighter bomber capable of carrying nuclear weapons. The plan to carry a Mark 7 bomb in a centerline recess in the aircraft’s belly resulted in the radical appearance of the airplane, with the engine intake mounted above and behind the cockpit.

Based on the F-100 Super Sabre, it was originally designated F-100B, but this was changed to F-107A prior to the first flight.

The North American Aviation F-107A was a single-seat, single-engine supersonic fighter bomber. It was equipped with a very sophisticated stability augmentation system. The F-107A was 61 feet, 10 inches  (18.847 meters) long with a wingspan of 36 feet, 7 inches (11.151 meters) and height of 19 feet, 8 inches (5.994 meters). Its empty weight was 22,696 pounds (10.295 kilograms) and had a maximum takeoff weight of 41,537 pounds (18,841 kilograms).

The airplane was powered by a Pratt & Whitney YJ75-P-11 afterburning turbojet which produced a maximum 24,500 pounds of thrust (108.98 kilonewtons).

This gave the F-107A a maximum speed of 890 miles per hour (1,432 kilometers per hour) at Sea Level, and 1,295 miles per hour (2,084 kilometers per hour) at 36,000 feet (10,973 meters). It could climb at an initial rate of 39,900 feet per minute (202.7 meters per second) and had a service ceiling of 53,200 feet (16,215 meters).

North American Aviation F-107A 55-5118 in flight. (U.S. Air Force)
North American Aviation F-107A 55-5118 in flight. (U.S. Air Force)

The Mark 7 was a variable-yield fission bomb that could be pre-set to detonate with ranges between 8 and 61 kilotons. It weighed approximately 1,700 pounds (771 kilograms).

The second F-107A, 55-5119, was the weapons test aircraft and was armed with four 20mm M39 cannon with 200 rounds per gun.

The F-107A was in competition with Republic’s F-105 Thunderchief, which was selected by the Air Force for production. Only three F-107A test aircraft were built.

After Air Force testing, two F-107s, 55-5118 and 55-5120, were turned over to the NACA High-Speed Flight Station for use as research aircraft. John Barron (“Jack”) McKay was assigned as the project pilot. 55-5118 made only 4 flights for NACA before being grounded. 55-5120 made 42 flights.

Today, 55-5118 is at the Pima Air and Space Museum, Tucson, Arizona. Its sister ship, 55-5119, is at the National Museum of the United States Air Force, Wright-Patterson AFB, Ohio. The third airplane, 55-5120, was damaged on takeoff with test pilot Scott Crossfield in the cockpit, 1 September 1959. It was not repaired.

The second F-107A, 55-5119, turns from downwind to base leg for landing on Runway 4, Edwards Air Force Base. This was the only one of the three prototypes to be equipped with 20 mm M39 cannon.(U.S. Air Force)
The first XF-107, 118 arrives at HSFS, 6 November 1957. (NASA E-57-3192)

© 2015, Bryan R. Swopes

8 September 1954

Albert Scott Crossfield, NACA Test Pilot. (LIFE Magazine via Jet Pilot Overseas)
Albert Scott Crossfield, NACA Test Pilot. (Allan Grant/LIFE Magazine)

8 September 1954: Scott Crossfield, a NACA Aeronautical Research Pilot at the High Speed Flight Station, Edwards Air Force Base, California, took the North American Aviation F-100A-5-NA Super Sabre, 52-5778, on its first NACA test flight—and his first flight in an F-100.

Tests of the prototype and early production Super Sabres revealed directional stability problems, a very dangerous inertia coupling characteristic that could cause the aircraft to go violently out of control (and which would result in the death of North American’s chief test pilot, George Welch, in just another three weeks). The highly swept wings could stall at high angles of attack, causing the airplane to pitch up in the deadly “Sabre dance.” NACA wanted to explore the causes of these aerodynamic problems and design solutions.

Scott Crossfield pre-flights a North American Aviation F-100A Super Sabre. Note the extended leading-edge "slats". (LIFE Magazine via Jet Pilot Overseas.)
Scott Crossfield pre-flights a North American Aviation F-100A Super Sabre. Note the extended leading-edge “slats”. (Allan Grant/LIFE Magazine)

During the flight there was an engine fire warning and Crossfield shut down the Pratt & Whitney J57-P-7 turbojet engine. The F-100A had no flaps and North American’s own test pilots did not think a “dead stick” landing was possible due the very high landing speed required.

Scott Crossfield signs the maintenance forms for an F-100, certifying the airplane ready for flight. (LIFE Magazine via Jet Pilot Overseas)
Scott Crossfield signs the maintenance forms for an F-100, certifying the airplane ready for flight. (Allan Grant/LIFE Magazine)

Scott Crossfield tells the story in his autobiography:

. . . As a matter of fact, North American tests pilots were then flipping coins to see who would bring an F-100 in dead-stick to fulfill a requirement of the Air Force acceptance tests. I was not concerned. Dead-stick landings in low L-over-D [Lift-over-Drag] airplanes were my specialty. Every test pilot develops a strong point. I was certain that my talent lay in dead-stick landings.

With the engine idling and generating no energy to the plane’s systems, I was running out of hydraulic pressure to operate the controls. Following the handbook instructions, I pulled a lever which extended a miniature “windmill” into the slipstream. This “windmill” churned, building up pressure in the hydraulic lines. Unknown to me, there was a major leak in the line. The windmill was not helping, but hurting me. It was pumping hydraulic fluid overboard as fast as it could turn.

Scott Crossfield climbs into the cockpit of a North American Aviation F-100A-5-NA Super Sabre. (LIFE Magazine via Jet Pilot Overseas)
Scott Crossfield climbs into the cockpit of a North American Aviation F-100A-5-NA Super Sabre. (Allan Grant/LIFE Magazine)

I called Edwards tower and declared an emergency. All airborne planes in the vicinity of the base were warned away from the lake area. I held the ailing F-100 on course, dropping swiftly, following the glide path that I used for the dead-stick Skyrocket. [Douglas D-558-II Skyrocket] I flared out and touched down smoothly. It was one of the best landings I have ever made, in fact. Seconds later, while the F-100 was rolling out, the remaining bit of hydraulic pressure in the control lines drained out and the controls froze.

I then proceeded to violate a cardinal rule of aviation: never try tricks with a compromised airplane. The F-100 was still rolling at a fast clip, coming up fast on the NACA ramp, when I made my poor decision. I had already achieved the exceptional, now I would end it with a flourish, a spectacular wind-up. I would snake the stricken F-100 right up the ramp and bring it to a stop immediately in front of the NACA hangar. This trick, which I had performed so often in the Skyrocket, was a fine touch. After the first successful dead-stick landing in an F-100, it would be fitting.

Instrument panel of a North American Aviation F-100 Super Sabre. (U.S. Air Force)
Instrument panel of a North American Aviation F-100 Super Sabre. The fire warning light and hydraulic pressure gauge are at the upper right corner. (U.S. Air Force)

According to the F-100 handbook, the hydraulic brake system—a separate hydraulic system from the controls—was good for three “cycles,” engine out. This means three pumps on the brake, and that proved exactly right. The F-100 was moving at about fifteen miles an hour when I turned up the ramp. I hit the brakes once, twice, three times. The plane slowed, but not quite enough. I was still inching ahead ponderously, like a diesel locomotive. I hit the brakes a fourth time—and my foot went clear to the floorboards. The hydraulic fluid was exhausted. The F-100 rolled on, straight between the yawning hangar doors!

The good Lord was watching over me—partially anyhow. The NACA hangar was then crowded with expensive research tools—the Skyrocket, all the X-1 series, the X-3, X-4 and X-5. Yet somehow, my plane, refusing to halt, squeezed by them all and bored steadily on toward the side wall of the hangar.


The nose of the F-100 crunched through the corrugated aluminum, punching out an eight-inch steel I-beam. I was lucky. Had the nose bopped three feet to the left or right, the results could have been catastrophic. Hitting to the right, I would have set off the hangar fire-deluge system, flooding the hangar with 50,000 barrels of water and ruining all the expensive airplanes. Hitting to the left, I would have dislodged a 25-ton hangar-door counterweight, bringing it down on the F-100 cockpit, and doubtless ruining Crossfield.

Chuck Yeager never let me forget the incident. He drew many laughs at congregations of pilots by opening his talk: “Well, the sonic wall was mine. The hangar wall was Crossfield’s.” That’s the way it was at Edwards. Hero one minute, bum the next. That I was the first pilot to land an F-100 dead-stick successfully, and memorized elaborate and complete instrument data on the engine failure besides, was soon forgotten.

The F-100 is a tough bird. Within a month NACA’s plane was flying again, with Crossfield back at the helm. In the next few weeks I flew forty-five grueling flights in the airplane, pushing it to the limits, precisely defining the roll coupling. (On one flight the coupling was so severe that it cracked a vertebra in my neck.) These data confirmed, in actual flight, the need for a new F-100 tail, which North American was planning to install on later models of the airplane.

Every night after landing, I taxied the F-100 slowly to the NACA ramp. At the bottom, placed there on orders of Walt Williams, there was a large new sign, symbolic of the new atmosphere at Edwards. It said:

PLEASE COME TO A COMPLETE STOP BEFORE TAXIING UP RAMP 

Always Another Dawn, The Story Of A Rocket Test Pilot, by A. Scott Crossfield with Clay Blair, Jr., The World Publishing Company, Cleveland and New York, 1960. Chapter 20 at Pages 196–199.

North American F-100A-5-NA Super Sabre parked on Rogers Dry Lake, 1959. It had been repaired and returned to service after running through the NACA hangar wall at Edwards AFB, 8 September 1954. In 1960, FW-778 was retired to Davis-Monthan AFB, Tucson, AZ. (NASA)
North American Aviation F-100A-5-NA Super Sabre 52-5778 parked on Rogers Dry Lake, 1959. It had been repaired and returned to service after running through the NACA hangar wall at Edwards AFB, 8 September 1954. In 1960, FW-778 was retired to Davis-Monthan AFB, Tucson, AZ. (NASA)
North American Aviation F-100A-5-NA Super Sabre 52-5778. (NASA)
North American Aviation F-100A-5-NA Super Sabre 52-5778. (NASA)
North American Aviation F-100A-5-NA Super Sabre 52-5778. (NASA)
North American Aviation F-100A-5-NA Super Sabre 52-5778. (NASA)
North American Aviation F-100A-5-NA Super Sabre 52-5778 parked on the ramp in front of the NACA hangar, Edwards Air Force Base, California, 1959. (NASA)
North American F-100A Super Sabre on the ramp near the NACA High-Speed Flight Station in 1957. (NASA)
NACA High Speed Flight Station, 24 August 1954. The Boeing P2B-1S Superfortress is parked at the northeast corner of the ramp. (NASA DFRC E54-1361)

© 2017, Bryan R. Swopes