Robert M. Stanley was an American test pilot and engineer. He became the first American to fly a jet aircraft on October 2, 1942, as a civilian test pilot for Bell Aircraft. He flew the Bell XP-59A Airacomet, which was the United States' first turbojet aircraft. The flight took place at Muroc Dry Lake, California. The Airacomet is on display at the National Air & Space Museum in Washington, DC.

Other achievements

• Started the Stanley Aviation
  Stanley Aviation
  Stanley Aviation is an aerospace company started by Robert M Stanley, the aviation pioneer, in Buffalo, New York in 1948.The company has since acquired several other companies and has been most recently acquired by Eaton Corporation....
  
   company in Buffalo, NY in 1948
• Participated in the design of the DC-3 while working with Douglas Aircraft
• Created a patent for a mechanically controlled reversible pitch propeller later copied and used by the German Luftwaffe
  Luftwaffe
  Luftwaffe is a generic German term for an air force. It is also the official name for two of the four historic German air forces, the Wehrmacht air arm founded in 1935 and disbanded in 1946; and the current Bundeswehr air arm founded in 1956....
  
  
• While an ensign in the Navy assigned to the carrier Lexington, he designed the Stanley Nomad
  Stanley Nomad
  |-See also:-External links:***...
  
  , a high performance sailplane with an aluminum fuselage and a tapered wing. He also designed and fitted this aircraft with the first known "Vee" tail and flew it to an altitude record of 17,284 feet inside a large cumulus cloud during a soaring contest in Elmira, NY, in 1939. This glider also set a cross-country record by flying from Elmira, NY, to Congressional Country Club in suburban Washington, DC. The 'Nomad'is now in the collection of the National Air & Space Museum and displayed at the Udvar-Hazy NASM facility near Dulles Airport in Chantilly, VA.
• Proposed the development of the Project Kingfisher guided missile
  Guided Missile
  Guided Missile is a London based independent record label set up by Paul Kearney in 1994.Guided Missile has always focused on 'the underground', preferring to put out a steady flow of releases and developing the numerous GM events around London and beyond....
  
  
• Was engineering vice president at Bell Aircraft during the design of the world's first supersonic aircraft, the Bell X-1
  Bell X-1
  The Bell X-1, originally designated XS-1, was a joint NACA-U.S. Army/US Air Force supersonic research project built by Bell Aircraft. Conceived in 1944 and designed and built over 1945, it eventually reached nearly 1,000 mph in 1948...
  
  
• He moved Stanley Aviation to Stapleton Airport in Denver, CO, where he patented and built ejection seats for jet fighter and bomber aircraft. He developed 'escape pod' style ejection seats for safe ejection from disabled aircraft flying at supersonic speeds. These were used in the Convair B-58 'Hustler' bomber and the North American RS-70 prototype supersonic bombers, among other designs.
• First developed the idea of launching an aircraft from another aircraft at high altitude
  Altitude
  Altitude or height is defined based on the context in which it is used . As a general definition, altitude is a distance measurement, usually in the vertical or "up" direction, between a reference datum and a point or object. The reference datum also often varies according to the context...
  
  which was used for the launch of the Bell X-1 and X-2 experimental research aircraft from the bomb bay of a Boeing B-50 bomber.
• Enjoyed white water rafting on the Colorado and Green Rivers in Colorado with his family and traversed the Grand Canyon by raft.
• Bob was tragically lost in 1977, flying with two of his sons, along with the wife of one son and fiance of the other, and life-long friend, Darwin Phillip Lowry of Overland Park, Kansas, in the crash of the Stanley company's Aero Commander. The plane encountered a severe wind shear on approach to the Miami, FL, International Airport, as the family was returning from a vacation trip to the Bahamas and broke up in flight.

External links

• Robert Stanley: Test Pilot/Engineer. National Aviation Hall of Fame.