—  Jerry Painter      

The following is a brief tribute I posted to the Yak-List (yak-list@matronics.com) shortly after Scott was killed. It's also on my blog at www.FlyWBA.com. Having just read "Always Another Dawn" on the SCF website, I discovered that I'd made a number of errors, but here's what I wrote then:

When I was a kid in the aftermath of the Big One, when jets were dangerous New Things and rockets had men for guidance systems, I read avidly about the exploits of Bill Bridgeman, Joe Walker, Al White, Mel Apt and many others--real heroes forging new paths in engineering and aeronautics--dreaming that some day I would do the same. I, too, wanted to be an experimental test pilot, the guy in the pointy end, a renaissance man of aeronautics, part engineer, part Leonardo, part athlete, part warrior, a man of intellect, daring and skill.

Scott Crossfield was one of my heroes. I'm a Seattle boy and he had studied aeronautical engineering at the University of Washington, in my home town. Boeing was a bomber and airliner factory, it was the Cold War, Seattle was a hard core airplane town and us kids designed and built tons of models, read the books and magazines, drew pictures of airplanes all day long in school and thought "Strategic Air Command" was the best movie ever made. We all wanted to fly. I even had a hobby shop in the basement because no store would stock the stuff we needed to build competition models. My AMA number was 10124. We were boy engineers, control line and free flight test pilots, too poor to afford radio control, longing to grow up and do the real thing.

Two airplanes really captured my imagination: the F-104 and the X-15. Those were the airplanes I hoped to fly someday, or more powerful, faster, higher flying successors. I wanted to go Mach 6, too.

Years later, dreams partly fulfilled, watching and listening to Crossfield on TV describing test running the XLR-99 rocket engine in the X-15, the first throttleable rocket engine, he again personified my idea of what a pilot and man should be. He told a story that went something like "the airplane is firmly chained to the ground, they strap you into the cockpit, get
everything prepared and then all go inside a concrete block house before you actually fire the thing off. This is called building the confidence of the pilot." Code words describing the potential for violent death that awaited the unlucky, unprepared or less skilled. "The Right Stuff" wasn't just the
title of a book or movie, it was what you hoped would keep you alive and Scott Crossfield was the man on the leading edge of the the greatest adventure ever.

You've seen the film: after they all go to the block house, Crossfield fires the XLR-99. Everything seems to be going well, then it looks like he's throttling it back, but the fire sputters and goes out. After what seems like a very long pause, the whole thing blows up in no uncertain way. Miraculously, Crossfield was unhurt. A crewman, mistakenly thinking Crossfield was in great danger and probably seriously injured, rushed to the cockpit. Crossfield tried to wave him off, he was OK, but the crewman opened the canopy with bare hands, suffering terrible burns and dragged Crossfield to "safety."

Later, during an early test flight, he encountered control problems and had to return to land, still heavy with fuel. On final approach he got into serious pitch PIO, finally landing on the skids attached to the aft fuselage, then the nose slammed to the ground and the fuselage broke in two just behind the cockpit. Again, Crossfield was unhurt.

When the Wright brothers centennial came around there was Crossfield again, working on a replica. He was at Oshkosh. He was in Seattle at the Museum of Flight. He was on TV. After almost fifty years, almost forgotten, he had made his way back into the spotlight. He owned a Cessna 210.

I was in the hangar when a friend came by to ask if I knew who Scott Crossfield was. Yes, I knew who he was, why? He was dead. Killed in an airplane accident, no details. When I checked my email later, EAA had a bulletin saying it was true. Killed in his 210. He was 84.

A lousy way to die.

I didn't know you and you didn't know me, but you meant more to me than you could ever know, Scott, and I will miss you, but I won't forget you.