Today in History – June 10, 1966 – First Lockheed VTOL Hummingbird crashes.

10 June 1966 – The “first Lockheed XV-4A Hummingbird, 62-4503, (originally designated VZ-10) crashed, killing civilian Department of the Army test pilot William “Bill” Ingram, of Newport News, Virginia.

The aircraft had just transitioned from conventional to vertical flight at 3,000 feet (914 m) when control was lost. [The] aircraft came down between Dobbins AFB and Woodstock, on Verney Drive in the Addison Heights subdivision of Cobb County, Georgia, injuring one civilian on the ground.” (1)

First prototype XV-4 Hummingbird

“The Lockheed XV-4 Hummingbird (originally designated VZ-10) was a U.S. Army project to demonstrate the feasibility of using VTOL for a surveillance aircraft carrying target-acquisition and sensory equipment. It was designed and built by the Lockheed Corporation in the 1960s, one of many attempts to produce a V/STOL vertical take-off/landing jet. Both prototype aircraft were destroyed in accidents.”(2)

Sources: (1)Wikiwand – list of aircraft accidents; (2) Wikiwand

 

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