James Francis Coleman (June 2, 1918 – May 13, 2014), nicknamed "Skeets", was an American military fighter and test pilot. Born in

Chicago (''City in a Garden''); I Will , image_map = , map_caption = Interactive Map of Chicago , coordinates = , coordinates_footnotes = , subdivision_type = Country , subdivision_name ...

Illinois Illinois ( ) is a U.S. state, state in the Midwestern United States, Midwestern United States. Its largest metropolitan areas include the Chicago metropolitan area, and the Metro East section, of Greater St. Louis. Other smaller metropolita ...

, Coleman joined the

United States Marine Corps The United States Marine Corps (USMC), also referred to as the United States Marines, is the maritime land force service branch of the United States Armed Forces responsible for conducting expeditionary and amphibious operations through combi ...

in 1941. During the Pacific Ocean theater of World War II, he was a fighter pilot flying dive bombing missions. After the war, he received an aeronautical engineering degree from

UCLA The University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) is a public land-grant research university in Los Angeles, California. UCLA's academic roots were established in 1881 as a teachers college then known as the southern branch of the California St ...

. From 1948 to 1950, he oversaw the operation of the now-defunct Del Mar Airport in

San Diego San Diego ( , ; ) is a city on the Pacific Ocean coast of Southern California located immediately adjacent to the Mexico–United States border. With a 2020 population of 1,386,932, it is the List of United States cities by population, eigh ...

California California is a U.S. state, state in the Western United States, located along the West Coast of the United States, Pacific Coast. With nearly 39.2million residents across a total area of approximately , it is the List of states and territori ...

. He would go on to work in sales and marketing for aviation companies, such as

North American Aviation North American Aviation (NAA) was a major American aerospace manufacturer that designed and built several notable aircraft and spacecraft. Its products included: the T-6 Texan trainer, the P-51 Mustang fighter, the B-25 Mitchell bomber, the F ...

and

Fairchild Aircraft Fairchild was an American aircraft and aerospace manufacturing company based at various times in Farmingdale, New York; Hagerstown, Maryland; and San Antonio, Texas. History Early aircraft The company was founded by Sherman Fairchild in 1 ...

. In 1951, Convair, an airplane manufacturer, was one of two companies contracted by the U.S. Navy to construct and test a vertical-takeoff-and-landing (VTOL) fighter. Convair created the tail-sitter XFY Pogo. Coleman, a Marine reservist and Convair employee, was chosen to be its test pilot when it was ready in 1954. Although the Pogo's liftoffs and transitions went smoothly, Coleman and other pilots had difficulty landing it, which had to be done visually from the cockpit. The Pogo project would prove to be unwieldy and was discontinued.Test & Research Pilots, Flight Test Engineers: James F. 'Skeets' Coleman 1918-
/ref> About the project, Coleman stated, "It was a developmental power plant, it was a developmental airplane, a developmental concept. It's pretty hard to tie all of those together without having a lot of risk". For being the first pilot to successfully maneuver a VTOL fighter, Coleman was awarded the Harmon Trophy in 1954. Coleman resigned from Convair, it was announced on 3 April 1956.Associated Press, "First of Pogo Stick Pilots Resigns Post", ''San Bernardino Daily Sun'', San Bernardino, California, Wednesday 4 April 1956, Volume LXII, Number 186, page 20. In 2014, Coleman died of natural causes at an assisted-living facility in

Oceanside, California Oceanside is a city on the South Coast (California), South Coast of California, located in San Diego County, California, San Diego County. The city had a population of 167,086 at the 2010 United States Census, 2010 census. The city is a popular ...

. He was 95. He was survived by three children.J.F. 'Skeets' Coleman dies at 95; test pilot for perilous XFY-1 Pogo
/ref>

References

External links

* piloting the

Convair XFY Pogo The Convair XFY Pogo was an experiment in vertical takeoff and landing (VTOL) tail-sitter. The Pogo had delta wings and three-bladed contra-rotating propellers powered by a turboprop engine. It was intended to be a high-performance fighter aircr ...

''New York Times'' article
archiving Coleman's Pogo test * in a

Camel A camel (from: la, camelus and grc-gre, κάμηλος (''kamēlos'') from Hebrew or Phoenician: גָמָל ''gāmāl''.) is an even-toed ungulate in the genus ''Camelus'' that bears distinctive fatty deposits known as "humps" on its back. C ...

cigarette commercial {{DEFAULTSORT:Coleman, J. F. 1918 births 2014 deaths Military personnel from Chicago United States Marine Corps officers United States Marine Corps pilots of World War II UCLA Henry Samueli School of Engineering and Applied Science alumni American test pilots