Robert Michael White (1924-2010)

[Orionid]

Robert Michael White (06.07.1924-17.03.2010)

Robert Michael White został wyselekcjonowany w ramach X-15 Grupa 1 (1957).

W ramach programu X-15 wykonał 16 lotów z czego jeden powyżej 80 km.
Siły Powietrzne USA mianowały White'a astronautą Sił Powietrznych i wręczyły mu odznakę "skrzydlatego astronauty"

Kilkakrotnie osiągnął światowe rekordy prędkości i wysokości.

02.1945 podczas swojej 52. misji bojowej został zestrzelony nad Niemcami, dostał się do niewoli i przetrzymywany był w niewoli do 04.1945.

06.1954 stacjonując w Edwards AFB w Kalifornii wstąpił do Szkoły Pilotów Doświadczalnych Sił Powietrznych.

01.1955 po jej ukończeniu której z klasą 54C pozostał w Edwards AFB przez 9 lat.
Brał udział w testach samolotów F-86K Sabre, F-89H Scorpion, F-102 Delta Dart i F-105B Thunderchief.

06.1958 został wybrany do szkolenia na astronautę w ramach realizacji przez Dowództwo Sił Powietrznych programu MISS (Man In Space Soonest).

01.08.1958 program został anulowany i zastąpiony przez Program Mercury.

1958 rozpoczął pracę nad programem X-15, ale wcześniej przeszedł szkolenie w Kolegium Dowództwa Powietrznego i Sztabu w Maxwell AFB w Alabamie, które ukończył w 1959.

07.02.1961 White nieoficjalnie ustanowił nowy rekord prędkości lotu na X-15 z prędkością 3660 km/h, po zainstalowaniu silnika XLR-99 o ciągu 250 kN.

White był pierwszym człowiekiem, który osiągnął prędkość 4 Mach, a później 5 Mach.

09.11.1961 White na X-15 osiągnął prędkość 6586 km/h, stając się pierwszym pilotem, który przekroczył samolotem prędkość 6 Mach.

12.1962 po opuszczeniu programu X-15 kontynuował testy innych typów samolotów.

1965-1966 studiował w Wyższej Szkole Przemysłowej Sił Zbrojnych.

1966 ukończył George Washington University i uzyskał tytuł Master of Business Administration.

1966 został przydzielony do Biura Systemów Taktycznych, gdzie brał udział w programie F-111 w Wright-Patterson AFB w stanie Ohio.

05.1967 rozpoczął działania bojowe w Wietnamie, najpierw jako zastępca dowódcy 335. Skrzydła Myśliwców Taktycznych (355. Skrzydła Myśliwców Taktycznych), stacjonującego w Bazie Królewskich Tajskich Sił Powietrznych Takhli, a także wykonał 70 misji bojowych na samolocie F-105 Thunderchief.

10.1967 został przeniesiony do Dowództwa 7. Sił Powietrznych na lotnisku Tan Son Nhut w Wietnamie, gdzie pełnił funkcję szefa Dywizji Szturmowej.

06.1968 wrócił do Wright-Patterson.

1970 został mianowany dowódcą Centrum Testów Lotów Sił Powietrznych w Edwards AFB.

Podczas służby w bazie sił powietrznych Edwards ukończył kurs spadochroniarza testowego marynarki wojennej.

1972 White opuścił Edwards i został komendantem Korpusu Szkolenia Oficerów Rezerwy w Maxwell AFB. Alabama.

1975 został mianowany szefem sztabu 4. Alianckich Sił Powietrznych Taktycznych w bazie lotniczej Ramstein w Niemczech Zachodnich.

01.02.1981 zrezygnował z tej funkcji.
 
17.03.2010 generał dywizji Sił Powietrznych w stanie spoczynku Robert Michael White zmarł w wieku 85. lat.

https://www.nasa.gov/image-article/x-15-pilot-major-robert-m-white/

http://www.spacefacts.de/bios/astronauts/english/white_robert.htm
http://www.astronautix.com/w/whiterobert.html
https://www.worldspaceflight.com/bios/w/white-r.php

https://www.kozmo-data.sk/kozmonauti/white-robert-michael.html
https://www.astronaut.ru/index/in_pers2/13_x15-04.htm 6 июля 1927

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_Michael_White
https://pt.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_Michael_White

https://www.thisdayinaviation.com/robert-michael-white-6-july-1924-17-march-2010/

https://kids.kiddle.co/Robert_Michael_White
https://valor.militarytimes.com/hero/3498
https://militaryhallofhonor.com/honoree-record.php?id=99

https://encrypted-tbn0.gstatic.com/licensed-image

http://www.collectspace.com/ubb/Forum38/HTML/001137.html
https://www.whiteeagleaerospace.com/first-mach-6/
https://forum.nasaspaceflight.com/index.php?topic=20943.0

https://nationalaviation.org/enshrinee/robert-michael-white/
https://www.thisdayinaviation.com/tag/robert-michael-white/
https://www.thisdayinaviation.com/2024/03/17/

https://www.sierrafoot.org/x-15/bios/white.html
https://militaryhallofhonor.com/honoree-record.php?id=99

Joe Walker and Robert White XLR-11 Record X-15 Flights

Le pilote d'essais Robert M. White (1924-2010) aurait eu 100 ans aujourd'hui.
Les 16 vols X-15 (dont un spatial) de Robert M. White :
https://spacerelics.blogspot.com/2020/11/les-vols-en-x-15-de-robert-white-les.html
Le White Knight de Scaled Composites a été baptisé en son honneur (et de Pete Knight)

https://x.com/spacemen1969/status/1809347271924007365

[Orionid]

Robert M. White dies at 85; pilot made history with 1962 test flight into space
By Dennis McLellan March 7, 2014 2:58 PM PT

Robert M. White was a 38-year-old U.S. Air Force major and record-setting test pilot at Edwards Air Force Base in 1962 when he joined the elite ranks of America’s four astronauts. (...)
https://www.latimes.com/local/obituaries/la-me-robert-white24-2010mar24-story.html

For his Mach 6+ flight, Bob White was a recipient of both the 1961 Collier Trophy and the Iven C. Kincheloe Award. The year before, White had received the Harmon Trophy for his X-15 flight test work. He would go on to fly the X-15 to a still-standing FAI altitude record of 314,750 feet in July of 1962. For this accomplishment, White was awarded USAF Astronaut Wings.

https://www.whiteeagleaerospace.com/category/history/page/16/

Then, on July 17, 1962 White flew the X-15 to an altitude of almost 100 kilometres above the Earth.''This is a fantastic view,'' he reportedly radioed while flying weightless.

He said after landing that it was too cloudy to see the ocean, ''but I could see the coastline of the western United States from well above San Francisco Bay down into Mexico.''

https://www.smh.com.au/national/the-american-pilot-who-winged-his-way-into-space-20100325-qzqt.html

Today in History – June 23, 1961 – Major Robert M. White exceeds Mach 5 in an X-15
By MB Barrett

23 June 1961: Major Robert Michael White, United States Air Force, became the first pilot to exceed Mach 5 in an aircraft. This was the 38th flight of the X-15 Program. Flights during this phase incrementally increased the speed and altitude of the X-15 up to its design limits of Mach 6 and 250,000 feet (76,200 meters).

The second North American Aviation X-15A, 56-6671, was air-dropped from the NB-52A Stratofortress mothership, 52-003, over Mud Lake, Nevada at 2:00:05.0 p.m., Pacific Daylight Time (21:00 UTC). White fired the Reaction Motors XLR99-RM-1 engine for 78.7 seconds, reaching Mach 5.27 (3,603 miles per hour, 5,799 kilometers per hour) and climbed to 107,700 feet (32,827 meters). 10 minutes, 5.7 seconds after being dropped from the B-52, White touched down on Rogers Dry Lake at Edwards Air Force Base. (...)
https://supersabresociety.com/this_time_in_history/today-in-history-june-23-1961-major-robert-m-white-exceeds-mach-5-in-an-x-15/

X-15A Flight No. 3-7-14: To the Edge of Space
December 12, 2023 By Ashley S Behringer, Posted In Motion Pictures, NASA, U.S. Air Force

The X-15 did not take off. It must have stuck out its thumb, because it hitched a ride into flight.

On July 17, 1962, Air Force Maj. Robert White took to the air with his X-15 mounted under the wing of a modified B-52. After separating from the mothership, he ignited his plane’s rockets and ascended to 59.6 miles above Earth, setting a new record. (...)
https://unwritten-record.blogs.archives.gov/2023/12/12/x-15a-flight-no-3-7-14-to-the-edge-of-space/

19 novembre 1959
Cette rare photo de presse en couleur du pilote d'essais Robert M. White (1924-2010) a 65 ans. Datée du 19 novembre.
Ses 16 vols en X-15 par Space Relics :
https://spacerelics.blogspot.com/2020/11/les-vols-en-x-15-de-robert-white-les.html

https://twitter.com/spacemen1969/status/1858648631253102891

[Orionid]

Robert M. White, Who Broke Limits in Flight, Dies at 85
By Richard Goldstein March 23, 2010

Robert M. White, who played an important role in the development of manned spaceflight as the first pilot to fly a winged craft into outer space, died Wednesday in Orlando, Fla. He was 85.

His death was announced by the National Aeronautics and Space Administration.

In the early 1960s, Major White, an Air Force pilot, was among those who pushed the envelopes of speed and altitude flying above the California desert out of Edwards Air Force Base, the fliers profiled by Tom Wolfe in “The Right Stuff.”

On July 17, 1962, he flew the rocket-powered X-15 plane to an altitude of 314,750 feet, or 59.6 miles, almost 10 miles above Earth’s atmosphere. “This gets better all the time,” United Press International quoted him as saying as he neared the end of his flight. “It’s a fantastic view.”

Major White was awarded the Collier Trophy for aviation from President John F. Kennedy, and he was recognized by the Air Force as a winged astronaut.

He never achieved the enduring celebrity status of the Mercury 7 astronauts or of Chuck Yeager, who broke the sound barrier in 1947, but he was the Air Force’s prime pilot for the X-15 program, which studied the effects of heat on aircraft surfaces at extremely high speeds and altitudes, and the physiological impact on fliers. Those X-15 flights helped propel NASA’s Mercury, Gemini and Apollo missions as well as the space shuttle program.

He was also the first flier to pilot a winged aircraft at four, five and then six times the speed of sound, exceeding that final milestone on Nov. 9, 1961, when he flew his X-15 at 4,093 miles an hour.



Maj. Robert M. White in 1961 after flying the rocket-powered X-15 at a speed of 4,093 m.p.h., six times the speed of sound. Credit...United States Air Force, via Associated Press

Major White hardly personified the image of the cocky test pilot.

“He was the eternally correct and reserved Air Force blue-suiter,” Mr. Wolfe wrote in “The Right Stuff.”

“He didn’t drink. He exercised like a college athlete in training. He was an usher in the Roman Catholic chapel of the base and never, but never, missed Mass,” Mr. Wolfe wrote. “He was slender, black-haired, handsome, intelligent — even cultivated, if the truth were known. And he was terribly serious.”

Robert Michael White was born in New York City on July 6, 1924, and entered military service in 1942. He flew more than 50 fighter missions during World War II before he was shot down over Germany in February 1945 and taken prisoner.

After leaving military service in December 1945, he obtained a bachelor’s degree in electrical engineering from New York University. Re-called during the Korean War, he served with a fighter squadron based in Japan, and in the mid-1950s he was assigned to Edwards.

Returning to combat in the Vietnam War, he flew 70 missions over North Vietnam and received the Air Force Cross, the service’s highest award for valor after the Medal of Honor, for leading an August 1967 attack on an important railway and highway bridge in the Hanoi area. He retired from military service in 1981 as a major general.

General White is survived by his sons Greg, of Orlando, and Dennis, of Sarasota, Fla.; his daughters Pamela White, of Pelham, Ala., and Maureen McFillin, of Hoover, Ala.; his brother, Albert, of Eastchester, N.Y.; and four grandchildren. His wife, Chris, died before him.

After his flight into outer space, the major was featured on the cover of Life magazine next to the quote, “Boy, That Was a Ride.”

His persona, however, was unchanged.

“White had not unbent as much as one inch for the occasion,” Mr. Wolfe wrote. “You could see them straining to manufacture one of those ‘personality profiles’ about White, and all he would give them was the Blue Suit and a straight arrow. That was Bob White.”
https://www.nytimes.com/2010/03/23/us/23white.html

Astro Info Service @aisoffice 8:49 AM · Aug 12, 2025
Maj. Robert White, USAF, pilots X-15 #1 to a record altitude of 41,605 m (136,500 ft) OTD 1960. This surpassed the previous record of 38,465 m (126,200 ft) set by Capt. Iven Kincheloe flying the X-2 on 7 September 1956. This was the 19th X-15 flight & the 10th for the #1 aircraft

https://twitter.com/aisoffice/status/1955159659536339047