Danger Man

Francis Gary Powers entered United States Air Force in 1950, trained as a pilot and was commissioned in 1952. In 1956, 1st Lieutenant Powers was released from the U.S.A.F. to participate in the Central Intelligence Agency’s Project Aquatone. His CIA position soon made Powers world famous when his Lockheed U-2A was shot down over Russia, in 1960. Powers was captured and held prisoner at the notorious Lubyanka Prison where he underwent sixty-two days of interrogation. 

But it gets worse.

On this day in 1977, Powers was killed, along with his photographer for KNBC, while piloting a Bell Ranger "Telecopter." Powers had 7,193 total flight hours, with 381 hours in the Bell 206. Unfortunately, Powers did not stop at two airports for refueling opportunities. Starved of fuel, the copter nose-dived into the ground, killing both instantly.

Project Skyhook

 

On this day in 1948, Captain Thomas Francis Mantell, Jr., 165th Fighter Squadron, Kentucky Air National Guard, received a request from the control tower at Fort Knox, Kentucky, to investigate an Unidentified Object. The object was observed by four members of the control tower staff for approximately 35 minutes. Mantell led four North American Aviation F-51D Mustang fighters in pursuit. Two pilots broke off because of low fuel, and Mantell became separated from his wingman. He reported that he was climbing through 15,000 feet. 

It is likely that Captain Mantell lost consciousness due to lack of oxygen. The wreckage of his fighter was found 5 miles southwest of Franklin, Kentucky. Mantell did not survive. In seven decades of hindsight, he spotted either Venus or the top secret Project Skyhook balloon, which could ascend to more than 100,000 feet. “The Mantell Incident” was one of the most publicized “UFO” reports of the 1950s, coming exactly six months after “The Roswell Incident” in New Mexico. 

Details at Project Skyhook program

Meteorite Versus Human

 

On this date in 1954, thirty-four-year-old Ann Hodges became the first modern confirmed case of a meteorite striking a human. Asleep under quilts on her sofa in her Sylacauga, Alabama home one afternoon, Hodges was hit by a grapefruit-sized meteorite that crashed through the roof and ceiling of her house, ricocheting off a large wooden radio and impacting her body, causing a large football-shaped bruise on the left side of her abdomen. When her husband returned home from work, there were so many spectators it was difficult to gain entrance to his home.

In a 2018 Wired magazine article, “The Mad Scramble to Claim the World’s Most Coveted Meteorite” they calculated the odds of a meteorite landing in a particular spot as 1 in 182 trillion. Ironically, Hodge’s house was across the road from the Comet drive-in theater.

More images at Sylacauga's meteor

A Blériot Trophy Then Tragedy

 

In 1930, aviation pioneer Louis Charles Joseph Blériot established the Blériot Trophy, to be awarded to an aviator who demonstrated flight at a speed of 1,242.742 mph for 30 minutes. Three decades later, on this day in1961, a USAF Convair B-58A-10-CF Hustler, The Firefly, did just that. Flown by a crew consisting of Aircraft Commander, Major Elmer E. Murphy, Navigator, Major Eugene Moses, and Defensive Systems Officer, First Lieutenant David F. Dickerson, the Mach 2+ Strategic Air Command bomber flew from New York to Paris in 30 minutes, 43 seconds. Their average speed was 1,302.07 mph. The marble trophy was presented to the B-58 crew by Alice Védères Blériot, widow of Louis Blériot, at Paris, France, May 27. It is on permanent display at the McDermott Library of the United States Air Force Academy, Colorado Springs, Colorado.

Tragically, on 3 June 1961, the Blériot Trophy-winning crew of Murphy, Moses and Dickerson departed Le Bourget Airport for the return trip to America. The B-58 crashed five miles from the airport. All three men were killed and the aircraft totally destroyed.