Word: boyds
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Dates: during 1940-1949
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...Enough Money. The 90-odd pilots of the Flight Test Division, most of them based at Wright Field, have the highest prestige of any group in the peacetime Air Force. Slim, unshakably calm Colonel Albert Boyd, 42, chief of the division, picks his men with minute care. Their records must show that they are not "accident prone." Formal engineering training is valuable, but character is essential. The prospective test pilot must be alert, intelligent, stable and not excitable. He must be enthusiastic about the work. There isn't enough money, explains Colonel Boyd undramatically, to pay for what...
Over & above these professional qualifications, Colonel Boyd demands that the test pilots have agreeable personalities. They are, he feels, ambassadors of the Air Force to civilian engineers and designers. They must criticize airplanes sharply, point out defects, suggest changes. Everybody is happier if such work can be done tactfully. Colonel Boyd is skillful at selecting his ambassadors: one notable fact about them is that they have pleasant personalities (another is that the married ones have pretty wives...
...Regulars. Most test pilots stay only a short time at Muroc, coming & going with their "projects," i.e., the aircraft on which they are making tests. Colonel Boyd, a strict but much-beloved "Old Man," is there a great deal. His pilots testify that "he does everything we do" and he is one of the six Air Force men who have flown faster than sound in the X-1.* ("The Old Man did fine," says Chuck.) In 1947, Test Pilot Boyd also set a new world's speed record (623.8 m.p.h.) over Muroc Lake in a specially built...
...down man, he just about had his choice of jobs in the Air Force. He tried instructing for a while, but found it dull. Then he got to Wright Field as a flight test pilot. After watching him do the most exacting tests (like landing jet fighters "hard"), Colonel Boyd gave him the X-1 project, which all ambitious test pilots wanted. "Chuck is always cool," says Colonel Boyd. "He never gets excited, and he flies like part of the airplane...
...another bout, Bob Ellis of the Law School outpointed Bob Boyd of Lionel to win the 165 pound title. Boyd was landing solid left jabs to the face near the end of the fight, but Ellis's aggressiveness and the fact that he almost knocked Boyd through the ropes with a right in the second round, earned him the close decision...