Aviation History: How and why did the X-2 program end?

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Everest: The program ended after Captain Apt’s fatal flight. The North American X-15 was going to be coming out soon, so there wasn’t any sense to building another X-2. Also, we had achieved what we wanted to with it–we had gone to the airplane’s highest altitude and highest speed. There was more work to be done in areas such as stability to get more data, but there wasn’t enough reason to build another X-2 just for that purpose.

Aviation History: Chuck Yeager went on to head the Air Force Aerospace Research Pilots School to train military astronauts for programs like the Manned Orbiting Laboratory and the X-20 project (Dyne-Soar program). Did you want to be a part of that program?

Everest: No.

Aviation History: Why not?

Everest: I just wasn’t that interested in it. Had I known that we would advance as far as the space shuttle I might have. The early astronaut programs like Mercury were not appealing because you could use a monkey as well as an astronaut to make the flights.

Aviation History: Were you interested in getting into the X-15 program?

Everest: I would have liked to, but it was still several years away from flying and I wanted to do other things.

Aviation History: What did you do after leaving Edwards Air Force Base in 1957?

Everest: I went to school at the Armed Forces Staff College in Norfolk, Virginia. Then I went to Europe as an F-100 squadron commander in Germany. I was then promoted and sent to Tripoli in Libya at Wheelus Air Force Base, where I became commander of a gunnery group. It was basically a training base for dropping bombs and shooting rockets and machine guns.

Aviation History: What makes a great test pilot, in your estimation?

Everest: You have to love to fly, have a sense of adventure, be an excellent pilot and want to do things that are dangerous.

Aviation History: You are quoted as having once said that it was your dream to be the first man on the moon.

Everest: Yeah.

Aviation History: Did many other test pilots during the time you spent at Edwards have the same dream?

Everest: I think so…we never talked about it in that light.

Aviation History: You didn’t see Mercury or Gemini as stepping stones to the moon?

Everest: In a way, yes, particularly when they started putting more funds in for the Apollo program. I would have been interested in Apollo, but by that time I was getting a bit old for that stuff.

Aviation History: Do you think today’s test pilots are the same as they were during your generation?

Everest: They would have to be. Of course, it’s so much more sophisticated, but the computers and engineering knowledge they have make it a much easier job. The engineers today, with their design abilities and computers, know just about everything before the airplane ever takes off. Most of the airplanes today are so unstable that if you didn’t have computerized stability augmentation, you couldn’t fly them–planes like General Dynamics’ F-16 and McDonnell Douglas’ F-15 and F/A-18.

Aviation History: What would happen if the computer stability augmentation system failed due to a computer error?

Everest: It would probably destruct, but they usually have three stability augmentation systems in them. I’m not aware of all they have done to check out what the airplane would do if you lost all three of those systems. However, there’s a very good redundancy.

Aviation History: Of all the hot airplanes flying today, which would you prefer to fly and why?

Everest: I love the little F-16. The F-15 was a big airplane, and the F-16 compared to it is like a Republic F-105 compared to a McDonnell F-4. When I flew the F-15, it seemed so large that I couldn’t get enthusiastic about it. When you get into an F-16, however, you feel like you put it on instead of getting into it. It’s a real performer, too.

Aviation History: What do you do to keep busy today?

Everest: I play golf, fish and do lots of traveling.

Author Barry E. DiGregorio is a freelance aviation writer as well as a rock music songwriter/musician. For further reading, he suggests: The Fastest Man Alive, by Frank M. Everest; and Supersonic Flight, by Dr. Richard P. Hallion.

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