EDWARDS AIR FORCE BASE, Calif. (AP) — The first person to fly a winged aircraft at four, five and six times the speed of sound has died. Retired Air Force Maj. Gen. Robert M. White was 85. NASA says the record-setting test pilot who flew X-15 rocket planes in the 1960s died March 17. His son, Greg, told the Orlando Sentinel and the Los Angeles Times that White died in his sleep in Orlando, Fla.
White flew in World War II and the Korean War before he became a test pilot at Edwards Air Force Base north of Los Angeles, making 16 flights in X-15s. NASA says White was the first to fly a winged craft at Mach 4, 5 and 6. In 1962, he flew an X-15 more than 59 miles high, earning the Air Force rating of winged astronaut. White later flew 70 missions in Vietnam and retired in 1981.
REST IN PEACE!
“What’s on your window?” – Flightline Fabrications
The very first enemy plane shot down during the Korean War was by a WWII F-51D Mustang! Throughout the Korean War many WWII aircraft distingushed themselves with their accomplishments. These propellor-driven airborne weapons were seen as obsolete, relics of an older era, but these feisty planes not only held their own against the jets of the Korean War era, they were Korean War heroes in their own right.
Over the course of the Korean War, however, it became obvious that the day of the piston-engined fighter was coming to a close and that the future would lie with the jet fighter. The first operational jets were developed during World War II and saw combat in its final year (1945). The German Me-262, developed by Messerschmitt was the only jet fighter to see actual combat during WWII. The Americans were one of the first to begin using jet fighters post WWII, the Lockheed P-80 Shooting Star (soon re-designated F-80) was the first jet fighter to see combat after WWII.
Soon after the introduction of the F-80 Shooting Star, the F-86 Saber was introduced to combat the Mig 15, entering the swept wing fighter into the history books. Propellor-driven aircraft went quietly into the night, but have never been forgotten!
Flightline Fabrications
Originally Published Monday December 1, 2008: Airforcetimes.com
Fifty-five years after he flew his F-86 Saber in combat over Korea, retired Lt. Gen. Charles Cleveland will finally receive the Silver Star for his Areial Dog Fights in Korea.
Cleavland qualified for the Silver Star earlier this year when the Air Force Board for Correction of Military Records recognized a Mig 15 that Cleveland shot down in 1952, making him an ace, a pilot with five confirmed kills. Cleveland did not record the dog fight as a confirmed kill in 1952 because he could not see the plane crash, flames coming from the plane, or the pilot bailing out.
More than 50 years after the Korean War, the West Point Classmate of Cleveland’s, Dolph Overton, found Soviet records of flight operations in Korea that included a shot-down Mig 15 matching Cleveland’s encounter. Evidence from those records helped convince the board reviewing Clevelend’s record that he had in fact brought down the Mig 15 some 50+ years ago.
Cleveland received the Silver Star at Maxwell Airforce Base, where he served as commander of the Air Universtiy from 1981 to 1984.
Flightline Fabrications
“What’s on your window?”
