Originally Posted by
Cubdriver
In my day it is also Experimental for any and all civilian jets. No military designs were or are around any more, except for Caravans with rockets and certain FBI planes, and pistons are always over at Pawnee as are certain experimental turboprops (see my thread #10 in this series) although the Caravans are at ICT.
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When I was there(66-67) 1/3 of the hangar was two A-37s (one of which is now in the Air Force Museum). The rest was 310/320/401(2)/421 and an O1E. We had one 411 with water tanks and a spray boom for some interesting icing tests. The test pilot on the 421 wiped the gear off landing at the Pawnee plant and we turned the fuselage into the 441 cabin mock up for one of the big airshows (Paris?) Worked on the 330 (which became the 340) and the wood Citation mock up. Bob Leonard, Jim LaSuer, and Milt Sills were the top test pilots then. Jim, of course, was tragically killed in the A-37. I was gone for a two year stint in Southeast Asia (not by choice) in 68-69 and came back for the first three months of '70. The 330 had crashed, killing the test pilot (whose name I've forgotten) and the second Citation test airplane had just flown. On my last day, in April of '70, Milt Sills smuggled me into the right seat of N500CC for a test flight that I got to actually fly most of, including the landing. He did the barrel rolls
