2 October 1970: The U.S. Air Force 1st Special Operations Wing at Hurlburt Field, Florida (Eglin AFB Auxiliary Field #9), took possession of the very first Bell UH-IN Iroquois, UH-1N-BF 68-10772 (Bell Helicopter Co. serial number 31001).
Also known as the “Twin Huey,” the medium-lift helicopter is a two-engine version of the Bell Model 205 (UH-1H). Originally developed for the Canadian Forces as the Bell Model 212, the UH-1N is powered by a Pratt & Whitney T400-CP-400 (the military designation for the commercial PT6T-3 “Twin-Pac”) which consists of two PT6 turboshaft engines mated to a combining gearbox to drive a single output shaft to the helicopter’s main transmission. The combined unit can produce a maximum 1,800 shaft horsepower. If one engine fails, the remaining engine can operate at 900 shaft horsepower for 30 minutes. The T400 is de-rated to the main transmission limit of 1,290 shaft horsepower.
Bell UH-1N 69-6607
The helicopter has other improvements over the Model 205/UH-1D/H Huey. The main rotor blades have a wider chord, producing greater lift. The main transmission is rated for greater power input. The tail boom and tail rotor pylon are strengthened, and the tail rotor has been moved to the opposite side of the pylon, in a tractor configuration instead of the previous pusher configuration. The tail rotor blade rotation is reversed with the advancing blade moving upward into the down flow of the main rotor, making it more efficient. Visual differences are the streamlined nose and the reshaped “dog house” covering the twin engine installation.
Cockpit of a U.S. Air Force/Bell UH-1N Iroquois during a 60° right bank. (A1C Nigel Sandridge, U.S. Air Force)
The U.S. Air Force normally operates the UH-1N with two pilots and a flight engineer, but it can be flown by a single pilot under visual weather conditions, if necessary. It is capable of transporting up to 12 passengers in addition to the three-man crew.
The Bell Helicopter Co. UH-1N Iroquois (Model 212) is 57 feet, 3 inches (17.450 meters) long, with a main rotor diameter of 48 feet, 0 inches (14.630 meters) and tail rotor diameter of 8 feet, 6 inches (2.591 meters). The overall height of the helicopter is 12 feet, 10 inches (3.912 meters) and the fuselage has a maximum width of 9 feet, 5 inches (2.870 meters). The helicopter’s empty weight is 6,032 pounds (2,736 kilograms), depending on installed equipment. The maximum takeoff weight is 10,500 pounds (4,763 kilograms).
The Pratt & Whitney Canada T400-CP-400 has a maximum continuous power rating of 1,530 shaft horsepower at 6,600 r.p.m. at Sea Level.
The helicopter’s cruise speed is 110 knots (127 miles per hour/204 kilometers per hour) and the maximum speed is 128 knots (147 miles per hour/237 kilometers per hour) at Sea Level. The UH-1N has an out-of-ground-effect hover ceiling (HOGE) of 13,000 feet (3,962 meters). The service ceiling is 21,600 feet (6,584 meters). The combat radius is 105 nautical miles (121 statute miles/194 kilometers) maximum ferry range is 565 nautical miles (650 statute miles/1,046 kilometers).
U.S. Air Force Bell UH-1N Iroquois helicopters deploy security personnel. (U.S. Air Force)
The UH-1N can be armed with GAU-16 .50-caliber machine guns or GAU-17 7.62mm “miniguns.”
The UH-1N is operated by the Air Force, the U.S. Navy and Marine Corps, as well as many foreign military services. In civil use, the Bell 212 is the most common medium lift helicopter worldwide and has been for 45 years.
Of the 79 UH-1N helicopters ordered by the U.S. Air Force in 1968, 59 remain in active service (as of September 2015).
On 24 September 2018, the U.S. Air Force announced that it would replace the UH-1N fleet with 84 Boeing/Leonardo MH-139s, with the first aircraft being delivered in 2021.
Still in service, UH-1N 68-10772 was photographed in flight 4 May 2022 at Gowen Field, Boise, Idaho. The helicopter was painted in the Southeast Asia camouflage scheme of the 20th Special Operations Squadron, “Green Hornets.”
Boeing XB-52 Stratofortress 49-230 takes off for the first time, at Boeing Field, Seattle, Washington, 2 October 1952. (LIFE Magazine via Jet Pilot Overseas)
2 October 1952: The Boeing XB-52 Stratofortress prototype, 49-230, made its first flight at Boeing Field, Seattle, Washington, with test pilot Alvin M. “Tex” Johnston in command. Lieutenant Colonel Guy M. Townsend, U.S. Air Force, acted as co-pilot.
The first of two prototype long-range, high-altitude, heavy bombers, the XB-52 had been damaged during ground testing and extensive repairs were required, which delayed its initial flight. The second prototype, YB-52 49-231, made the type’s first flight nearly six months earlier, on 15 April 1952.
Alvin M. “Tex” Johnston, test pilot, after the first flight of the Boeing XB-52 Stratofortress prototype, 2 October 1952. (LIFE Magazine via Jet Pilot Overseas)
The prototype Stratofortress the largest jet aircraft built up to that time. It was 152.7 feet (46.543 meters) long with a wingspan of 185.0 feet, (56.388 meters) and 48.25 feet (14.707 meters) to the top of the vertical fin. The leading edges of the wings were swept back 36° 54′. The XB-52 had an empty weight of 155,200 pounds (70,398 kilograms) and its maximum takeoff weight was 390,000 pounds (176,901 kilograms). Fuel capacity was 27,417 gallons (103,785 liters).
Lieutenant Colonel Guy M. Townsend, U.S. Air Force. (Jet Pilot Overseas)
The XB-52 was powered by eight Pratt & Whitney YJ57-P-3 turbojet engines, with a normal power rating of 8,700 pounds static thrust at Sea Level (38.700 kilonewtons). The prototype bomber had a cruising speed of 519 miles per hour (835 kilometers per hour), and a maximum speed of 611 miles per hour (983 kilometers per hour) at 20,000 feet (6,048 meters). The planned bombing altitude was 46,500 feet (14,173 meters) and it had a service ceiling of 52,300 feet (15,941 meters). The XB-52 had an initial rate of climb of 4,550 feet per minute (23.11 meters per second) at Sea Level. Its maximum unrefueled range was 7,015 miles (11,290 kilometers).
Pilot’s cockpit, Boeing XB-52. (Boeing)Boeing XB-52 Stratofortress 49-230. (U.S. Air Force)Boeing XB-52 Stratofortress 49-230 with a North American F-86 Sabre chase plane. (U.S. Air Force)Boeing XB-52 Stratofortress 49-230. (U.S. Air Force)
In its original configuration, the XB-52 was armed with two .50-caliber machine guns in a turret in the tail, with 600 rounds of ammunition per gun, though these guns were not installed on 49-230. The XB-52 was designed to carry a single 25,200 pound (11,431 kilogram) T-28E2 Samson bomb, or other conventional or nuclear weapons.
XB-52 49-230 was used in flight testing for its entire service life. The airplane was scrapped in the mid-1960s.
744 B-52 bombers were built by Boeing at Seattle, Washington and Wichita, Kansas, with the final one, B-52H-175-BW 61-0040, rolled out 22 June 1962.
75 B-52H Stratofortresses are still in service with the United States Air Force.
Boeing XB-52, with Tex Johnston and Guy Townsend in the tandem cockpit. (Boeing)Boeing XB-52 Stratofortress 49-230 with two Pratt & Whitney J75 turbojets in single-engine nacelles on the outer pylons, circa 1959. (U.S. Air Force)
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 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 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.
2 October 1970: The U.S. Air Force 1st Special Operations Wing at Hurlburt Field, Florida (Eglin AFB Auxiliary Field #9), took possession of the very first Bell UH-IN Iroquois, UH-1N-BF 68-10772 (Bell Helicopter Co. serial number 31001).
