Albert Scott Crossfield - Legacy

Legacy

While he was celebrated as a daring test pilot, he claimed that his actual profession was an engineer. "I am an aeronautical engineer, an aerodynamicist and a designer. My flying was only primarily because I felt that it was essential to designing and building better airplanes for pilots to fly." Even so, Crossfield often performed much of the dangerous initial test flight profiles with a small cadre of other test pilots before active duty Air Force and Navy test pilots were turned loose in the experimental aircraft.

Crossfield opined his military, NACA/NASA, and manufacturer flight test jobs were to prepare military test pilots for the tasks in which they earned recognition for aeronautical firsts by giving them solid flight data.

To friends and protégés, Crossfield was incredibly generous with his time and his insights. A morning meet for a cup of coffee could easily turn into a three-hour chat about almost anything. One such chat was about his first meeting with Vice President Nixon and his test flight; Nixon remarked about the danger of flying. Crossfield replied, "I think you are in a much more precarious position, sir, as an elected official", then wryly remarked that he predicted Watergate fallout well before any other person. To an even smaller group of those who were close, Crossfield discussed distinguishing capabilities of test pilots and who could be counted upon to get recurring reliable data on profile flights and those who were assigned to the chase planes.