William H. "Bill" McAvoy was a civilian test pilot in the 1920s and 1930s for the

National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics The National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics (NACA) was a United States federal agency founded on March 3, 1915, to undertake, promote, and institutionalize aeronautical research. On October 1, 1958, the agency was dissolved and its assets ...

(NACA) at the Langley Memorial Aeronautical Laboratory,

Langley Field Langley may refer to: People * Langley (surname), a common English surname, including a list of notable people with the name * Dawn Langley Simmons (1922–2000), English author and biographer * Elizabeth Langley (born 1933), Canadian perform ...

, Virginia, and in 1940 helped start the flight operations division at the

Ames Research Center The Ames Research Center (ARC), also known as NASA Ames, is a major NASA research center at Moffett Federal Airfield in California's Silicon Valley. It was founded in 1939 as the second National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics (NACA) laborat ...

, California.

Life

He had served in the U.S. Army from 1917 to 1921. Employed by NACA by 1929, McAvoy was one of several pilots, including Melvin N. Gough, Edmund T. "Eddie" Allen, and Thomas Carroll that NACA trained "in stability and control research techniques, including the ability to reach and hold equilibrium flight conditions with accuracy. As with all good research test pilots, the NACA group worked closely with flight test engineers and in fact took part in discussing NACA’s flying qualities work with outsiders. All of this helped lay the groundwork for the comprehensive flying qualities research that followed." McAvoy was involved in the testing of many different aircraft types at the Langley Field facilities near

Hampton, Virginia Hampton () is an independent city (United States), independent city in the Commonwealth (U.S. state), Commonwealth of Virginia in the United States. As of the 2020 United States Census, 2020 census, the population was 137,148. It is the List ...

, including the third of the

Grumman The Grumman Aircraft Engineering Corporation, later Grumman Aerospace Corporation, was a 20th century American producer of military and civilian aircraft. Founded on December 6, 1929, by Leroy Grumman and his business partners, it merged in 1994 ...

XF3F-1 prototypes, BuNo ''9727'' (3rd), rebuilt from the wreckage of the second prototype which crashed at

Naval Air Station Anacostia Anacostia is a historic neighborhood in Southeast Washington, D.C. Its downtown is located at the intersection of Good Hope Road and Martin Luther King Jr. Avenue. It is located east of the Anacostia River, after which the neighborhood is nam ...

, Washington, D.C., on 17 May 1935. On 15 October 1929, McAvoy was testing the

Martin Martin may refer to: Places * Martin City (disambiguation) * Martin County (disambiguation) * Martin Township (disambiguation) Antarctica * Martin Peninsula, Marie Byrd Land * Port Martin, Adelie Land * Point Martin, South Orkney Islands Austral ...

XT5M-1 divebomber, BuNo ''A-8051'', when, during terminal dive test at 350 IAS at 8,000 feet, the lower starboard wing caved in, ripping an extensive hole. McAvoy staggered the aircraft back to the Martin field north of

Baltimore, Maryland Baltimore ( , locally: or ) is the List of municipalities in Maryland, most populous city in the U.S. state of Maryland, fourth most populous city in the Mid-Atlantic (United States), Mid-Atlantic, and List of United States cities by popula ...

, landing at 110 mph with full-left stick input and thereby saving the machine. The aircraft would go into production as the BM-1. In July 1931, McAvoy and Melvin Gough conducted a series of tests on America's first autogyro, the

Pitcairn PCA-2 The Pitcairn PCA-2 was an autogyro (designated as "autogiro" by Pitcairn) developed in the United States in the early 1930s.Taylor 1989, p.735 It was Harold F. Pitcairn's first autogyro design to sell in quantity. It had a conventional design fo ...

, NACA 44. The test series was the first to yield quantitative data on the handling qualities of the forerunner of the helicopter. McAvoy also handled the first flight of the Grumman XFF-1, on 29 December 1931. He conducted the majority of the flight testing of the design in 1932. On the first flight of the United States Navy Hall XP2H-1 four-engine flying boat, BuNo ''A-8729'', at Naval Air Station Anacostia, Washington, D.C., on 15 November 1932, it nosed straight up on take-off due to an incorrectly rigged stabilizer. Test pilot Bill McAvoy and the aircraft's designer, Charles Ward Hall, Sr., managed to chop the throttles, with the plane settling back onto the surface of the river, suffering only minor damage. This sole prototype was the largest four-engine biplane the

U.S. Navy The United States Navy (USN) is the maritime service branch of the United States Armed Forces and one of the eight uniformed services of the United States. It is the largest and most powerful navy in the world, with the estimated tonnage o ...

ever procured, with a wingspan of 112 feet. He was forced to bail out of an experimental airframe on at least one occasion. On 30 March 1936, the sole Pitcairn YG-2

gyrocopter An autogyro (from Ancient Greek, Greek and , "self-turning"), also known as a ''gyroplane'', is a type of rotorcraft that uses an unpowered rotor in free autorotation to develop lift (force), lift. Forward thrust is provided independently, by an ...

, (Pitcairn PA-33), ''35-270'', undergoing tests by NACA, suffered structural failure, and crashed near the Back River, Virginia, two miles SE of

, and burned. McAvoy managed to safely escape the rotor-winged craft. With this jump, McAvoy became Caterpillar Club member number 777, although the date cited is 21 March 1936. NACA Lockheed 12A 1940

After transferring to Ames Research Center in the fall of 1940, McAvoy was involved in ice-research work. NACA and the military were very interested in advancing all-weather flight capabilities at this time. He flew a Martin XPM, a

North American O-47 The North American O-47 is an American observation fixed-wing aircraft monoplane designed in the mid-1930s and used by the United States Army Air Corps during the Second World War. It has a low-wing configuration, retractable landing gear, and a t ...

, and later, a Lockheed 12A transport, specially modified by Kelly Johnson and Lockheed with engine exhaust ducted through the wing leading edges and exhausting at the wingtips. From early 1940, this plane was flown into the worst weather to be found, and the research provided by the heavily instrumented airframe showed that anti-icing systems were practical. "In 1943 the Institute of the Aeronautical Sciences had given Ames pilot William H. McAvoy the

Octave Chanute Award The American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics, Inc. (AIAA) established the Octave Chanute Award named after Octave Chanute. Pilot(s) or test personnel that contributed to the advancement of the art, science, or technology of aeronautics r ...

for 'continuous service in the flight testing of experimental planes under hazardous conditions imposed by aeronautical research.' Certainly an important part of the motivation for this award came from the hazardous deicing flights of the Lockheed 12 on which McAvoy had served as pilot." (The pending award was actually announced by the Institute of Aeronautical Sciences, in New York, on 9 January 1944.)Associated Press, "Wins Air Award", ''The Spokesman-Review'', Spokane, Washington, Monday 10 January 1944, Volume 61, Number 241, page 3.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:McAvoy, William H. Aviation pioneers Aviation history of the United States American test pilots Year of birth missing Year of death missing