Albert Scott Crossfield

Albert Scott Crossfield (October 2, 1921 – April 19, 2006) was an American naval officer and test pilot.

Born October 2, 1921, in Berkeley, California, Scott Crossfield grew up in southern California and rural southwest Washington, a son of Albert Scott Crossfield, Sr. (May 13, 1887 – October 21, 1954) and his first wife Maria Lucia Dwyer (March 8, 1892 – March 23, 1960).

Crossfield graduated from Boistfort High School southwest of Chehalis, attended the University of Washington in Seattle, then worked for Boeing.

He served with the U.S. Navy as a flight instructor and fighter pilot during World War II.

During this time, he flew the F6F Hellcat and F4U Corsair fighters, as well as SNJ trainers, and a variety of other aircraft.

He married Alice Virginia Knoph (June 27, 1920 – September 23, 2015) on 21 April 1943 in Corpus Christi, Texas.

She was of Norwegian descent and had attended Garfield High School in Seattle.

From 1946 to 1950, he worked in the University of Washington's Kirsten Wind Tunnel while earning his Bachelor of Science and Master of Science degrees in aeronautical engineering in 1949 and 1950, respectively.

In 1950, Crossfield joined the National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics' (NACA) High-Speed Flight Station (later named the NASA Dryden Flight Research Center and then the Neil A. Armstrong Flight Research Center) at Edwards Air Force Base, California, as an aeronautical research pilot.

Crossfield demonstrated his flight test skills on his very first student solo.

His instructor was not available on the designated early morning, so Crossfield, on his own, took off and went through maneuvers he had practiced with his instructor, including spin entry and spin recovery.

During the first spin, Crossfield experienced vibrations, banging, and noise in the aircraft that he had never encountered with his instructor.

He recovered, climbed to a higher altitude, and repeated his spin entry and spin recovery, getting the same vibration, banging and noise.

On his third spin entry, at yet an even higher altitude, he looked over his shoulder as he was spinning and observed the instructor's door disengaged and flapping in the spin.

He reached back, pulled the door closed, and discovered all the vibrations, banging and noise stopped.

Satisfied, he recovered from the spin, landed, and fueled the airplane.

He also realized his instructor had been holding the door during their practice spin entries and recoveries, and never mentioned this door quirk.

In later years, Crossfield often cited his curiosity about this solo spin anomaly and his desire to analyze what was going on and why it happened, as the start of his test pilot career.

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, Douglas D-558-I Skystreak, and the Douglas D-558-II Skyrocket.

During one of his X-1 flights, the cockpit windows completely frosted and Crossfield was literally flying blind.

Ever resourceful, he removed a loafer, took off his sock, and created a peep hole to reference his chase plane wingman all the way to landing.

Their son Paul Stanley Crossfield was born in 1952 while the Crossfields resided in California.

In 1953, he became the first pilot to fly at twice the speed of sound.

Crossfield was the first of twelve pilots who flew the North American X-15, an experimental spaceplane jointly operated by the United States Air Force and NASA.

On November 20, 1953, he became the first to fly at twice the speed of sound as he piloted the Skyrocket to a speed of 1,291 mph (2,078 km/h, Mach 2.005).

The Skyrocket D-558-II surpassed its intended design speed by 25 percent on that day.

In September 1954, Crossfield was forced to make a deadstick landing in the North American F-100 Super Sabre he was evaluating at the High-Speed Flight Station (the Neil A. Armstrong Flight Research Center), a feat which North American's own test pilots doubted could be done, as the F-100 had a high landing speed.

Crossfield made a perfect approach and touchdown, but was unable to bring the unpowered aircraft to a halt in a safe distance, and was forced to use the wall of the NACA hangar as a makeshift brake after narrowly missing several parked experimental aircraft ("with great precision," as he later wryly joked).

Crossfield was uninjured, and the F-100 was later repaired and returned to service.

With 99 flights in the rocket-powered X-1 and D-558-II, Crossfield 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.

Crossfield left NACA in 1955.

As chief engineering test pilot for North American, Crossfield played a major role in the design and development of the North American 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 (2,290 mph).

Because the X-15 and its systems were unproven, these tests were considered extremely hazardous.

Crossfield flew 14 of the 199 total X-15 flight tests with most of these tests establishing and validating initial key parameters.

Crossfield was not only involved with the design of X-15 from the beginning, but introduced many innovations, including putting engine controls of the rocket plane into the cockpit.

Previously, all engine adjustments resulted from technicians making adjustments on the ground based upon results of flight profiles.

It was during this time that Crossfield was part of the U.S. Air Force's Man In Space Soonest project.

On June 8, 1959, he completed the airplane's first flight, an unpowered glide from 37,550 feet.

The flight was troubled as the flight controls had not been set up properly.