Sad news for aviation buffs

[Aim to maim]

RANGER, Ga.--Legendary test pilot Scott Crossfield, the first man to fly at twice the speed of sound, was found dead Thursday in the wreckage of his single-engine plane in the mountains of northern Georgia.

Searchers including the Civil Air Patrol discovered the wreckage of the small plane about 50 miles northwest of Atlanta. The wreckage was spotted from the air by a Georgia State Patrol helicopter.

Ed Fleming, Crossfield's son-in-law, told The Associated Press from Crossfield's home in Herndon, Virginia, that the family had been told it was Crossfield.

Crossfield was alone in the plane when it crashed late Wednesday morning, said Captain Paige Joyner of the Civil Air Patrol, who made the announcement of Crossfield's death.

Crossfield's Cessna 210A was last spotted on Wednesday at 11,500 feet while on a flight from Prattville, Alabama to Manassas, Virginia. There were thunderstorms in the area, including large hail, when officials lost radar and radio contact with the plane at 11:15 a.m., said Kathleen Bergen, a spokeswoman for the Federal Aviation Administration.

Crossfield, 84, had been one of a group of civilian pilots assembled by the National Advisory Committee on Aeronautics, the forerunner of NASA, in the early 1950s. Crossfield set the Mach 2 record--twice the speed of sound--in 1953, when he reached 1,300 mph in NACA's Douglas D-558-II Skyrocket.

In 1960, Crossfield reached Mach 2.97 in an X-15 rocket plane launched from a B-52 bomber. The plane reached an altitude of 81,000 feet. At the time, Crossfield, the first man to fly the X-15, was working as a pilot and design consultant for North American Aviation, the plane's manufacturer. He later worked as an executive for Eastern Airlines and Hawker Siddley Aviation.

More recently, Crossfield had a key role in preparations for the attempt to re-enact the Wright brothers' flight on the 100th anniversary of their feat near Kitty Hawk. He trained four pilots for the Dec. 17, 2003, flight attempt in a replica of the brothers' flyer, but poor weather prevented the take-off. In February of this year, Crossfield served as a member of NAA's Collier Trophy Selection Committee. Among his many honors, Crossfield was inducted into the National Aviation Hall of Fame in 1983. He was also a member of the National Aeronautic Association Board of Directors and had received the 1961 Collier Trophy and NAA's Elder Statesman of Aviation award.

Crossfield's Cessna was built in December, 1960, and was the third 210-A model to be completed. He had well over 2000 hours in the airplane, most all of it flying alone.

"It's mine and it's paid for," Crossfield said of the vintage airplane. "I love to hand-fly it," he told AVWEB in 2001.