posted 10-24-2010 07:50 AM               

Space Cover #80: John McKay

Fifty years ago this week, NASA pilot John McKay performed his first flight in the X-15, as shown on this cover. This is a Goldcraft Cachet (X-15 Type II) cover, postmarked at Edwards AFB on October 28, 1960, the date of McKay's flight. He performed the flight in X-15 #1 with the interim powerplant of two XLR-11 (X-1 vintage) engines. He kept it "low and slow", a relative term for this high performance rocketplane - Mach 2.02 and 50,700 ft altitude on this 9 minute, 53 second flight.

A lot of us are familiar with the more high-profile X-15 pilots - Scott Crossfield, Joe Walker, Neil Armstrong, Joe Engle, Pete Knight, and Bill Dana. John (known as Jack) McKay was one of the less-known, but just-as-accomplished pilots of the X-15. McKay was a Navy pilot who earned the Air Medal with two oak leaf clusters flying F6F Hellcats in the Pacific in WWII. He went to work for NACA in 1951. By the time he first flew the X-15, McKay had already made 46 rocket flights in the D-558-II, X-1B, and X-1E rocketplanes - more rocket experience than any of the X-15 pilots other than Crossfield.

McKay flew 29 missions in the X-15, the second highest number of flights of any X-15 pilot (Rushworth made 34). On his November 9, 1962 flight, multiple technical problems caused McKay to land too heavy and too fast, and the X-15 flipped over, crushing several of his vertebrae. McKay recovered and returned to flying the X-15 on April 25, 1963. On his September 28, 1965 mission, he surpassed 295,000 feet altitude - well beyond the arbitrary 50 mile high boundary of space. However, NASA did not award astronaut wings to their X-15 pilots who passed 50 miles at that time (the Air Force did). McKay performed his last X-15 flight on September 8, 1966 as complications from the crash caused his retirement from flying. He died on April 27, 1975 from those same complications. NASA posthumously awarded McKay a set of astronaut wings in 2005.

John McKay was one amazingly tough, unsung hero...

posted 10-24-2010 10:21 AM               

I have been fortunate to attend lectures over the years by x-15 pilots Engle, Crossfield, and Armstrong.

posted 10-24-2010 01:09 PM               

quote:

---

Originally posted by micropooz:
John McKay was one amazingly tough, unsung hero...

---

posted 10-26-2010 06:01 PM               

I got the same cover with Boy Scout RS.

Nice cover!