Jack Woolams
Jack Valentine Woolams | |
|---|---|
 Woolams after setting an altitude record of 47,600ft in a P-59 | |
| Born | February 14, 1917 |
| Died | August 30, 1946 (aged 29) |
| Cause of death | Plane Crash |
| Nationality | American |
| Known for | Test Pilot |
| Aviation career | |
| Famous flights | First pilot to fly the Bell X-1 |
Jack Valentine Woolams (1917–1946) - was the senior experimental test pilot and later chief test pilot at Bell Aircraft during the introduction of the P-39, P-63, P-59, and X-1 aircraft.
Early Years
Woolams was born on February 14, 1917 (Valentine's Day) to Leonard and Elsa Woolams in San Francisco, CA and raised in the suburb of Ross, California.[1] Woolams attended the University of Chicago for two years before joining the United States Army Air Corps. He served on active duty for approximately eighteen months, after which he returned to the University of Chicago and graduated with a degree in economics in June 1941.
Career and flight records
Woolams joined Bell Aircraft later that month and was soon transferred from the test flight division to the experimental research division. In September 1942, he became the first person to fly a fighter aircraft coast to coast over the United States without stopping. In the summer of 1943, he set a new altitude record of 47,600 feet.[2] He became chief test pilot for Bell in 1944, and was the first to fly the Bell X-1 and the only one to pilot the plane at the Pinecastle facility in Orlando, Florida.
Personality
Author Sterling Michael Pavelec records that Woolams once joined a group of trainee pilots while flying the experimental P-59 jet airplane. The trainees, surprised to see a plane flying without propellers, were astonished to see Woolams flying the plane wearing an old Halloween gorilla mask, a bowler hat and smoking a cigar. Woolams waved at them and flew away.[3]
Death and legacy
Woolams' career ended abruptly on August 30, 1946. He was killed in the P-39 "Cobra I" during a practice flight for the National Air Races in Cleveland, Ohio that were to occur the next day. Woolams flew the Cobra I from Cleveland back to Bell Aircraft in Niagara Falls on August 29, after obtaining a disappointing qualifying speed of 392 mph. Woolams was testing the plane over Lake Ontario, late in the afternoon, possibly at speeds over 400 mph. It suddenly and inexplicably crashed into the water, breaking apart upon impact. His body was recovered 4 days later.[4] After the wreckage of Cobra I was recovered, it was believed a canopy failure was the cause of the crash and Woolams' death.[5]
There was internal debate at Bell Aircraft as whether to continue with the race or not, but Woolams' teammate and fellow Bell test pilot, Tex Johnston, insisted that Woolams would have raced if it was the other way around. The day after Woolams' death, Johnston went on to win the 1946 Thompson Trophy in the Cobra II, the identical twin of Cobra I.[5]
References
- ^ "United States Census, 1930". FamilySearch.com. Retrieved 20 September 2020.
- ^ "Jack Woolams Establishes an Altitude Record". Edwards Air Force Base. Retrieved 20 September 2020.
- ^ Sterling Michael Pavelec (2007). The Jet Race and the Second World War. Greenwood Publishing Group. pp. 133. ISBN 978-0-275-99355-9.
- ^ "X-1 Biographies". NASA. Retrieved 14 January 2013.
- ^ a b Johnston, Tex. Tex Johnston, Jet-Age Test Pilot (1st ed.). Washington D.C.: Smithsonian Institution Press. p. 85-99. ISBN 1-56098-013-3.
External Links
This article incorporates text from this source, which is in the public domain: https://history.nasa.gov/x1/woolam.html