Nasa remembers fourth person to exceed speed of sound, WWII and bomber pilots on Day of Remembrance

On Day of Remembrance, Nasa remembers the fourth person to exceed speed of sound, a World War II pilot of a bomber fighter plane and a naval aviator who flew 48 combat missions in supersonic jet interceptor plane F-4s over Vietnam.

National Aeronautics and Space Administration's (Nasa) on January 30 observes Day of Remembrance. The day to remember their astronauts lost in space and time.

Nasa Armstrong Flight Research Center in California officials remember three pilots in its history who died behind their sticks of their aircraft.

First is Howard C Lilly who was famously known as Tick. Tick was the fourth person to exceed the speed of sound.

Tick was the first National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics (Naca) engineering pilot assigned to the Muroc Flight Test Unit, now known as Nasa Armstrong - an aeronautical research centre in California, US.

Tick trained as a naval aviator initially but later joined Naca's aeronautical laboratory in 1942. It was 1947 when Tick was transferred to Muroc Flight Test Unit or now known as Nasa Armstrong.

After joining Muroc, Tick flew a transonic aircraft named Douglas D-558-1 apart from flying a rocket engine-powered aircraft Bell X-1.

On May 3, 1948, when Tick's D-558-1's engine faced a glitch it cut off the aircraft's control and the airplane crashed.

After 18 years later Naca lost another pilot.

Joseph A Walker popularly known as Joe. Joe was a chief research pilot at the Nasa Flight Research Center during the mid-1960s.

During World War II, Joe flew a P-38 aircraft for the Army Air Force in North Africa. A fighter-bomber employed by the US Army Air Forces during World War II, call it a rumour or propaganda, the aircraft was nicknamed the fork-tailed devil by Germans.

Joe then joined the Naca's Lewis Flight Propulsion Laboratory in Ohio in 1945 and was transferred to the High-Speed Flight Research Station in 1951.

Joe made the first Nasa-piloted X-15 flight March 25, 1960, and flew the aircraft 24 times, achieving its highest altitude (3,54,200 ft) on August 22, 1963.

Joe made the first flight in the Lunar Landing Research Vehicle in 1964 that led to the Lunar Landing Training Vehicle used in Houston to train astronauts to land on the Moon.

Joe died on June 8, 1966, when his F-104 was caught in the wingtip vortex of the North American XB-70.

Then came 1980s. A pilot proficiency flight claimed the life of Richard E Gray going with nickname Dick.

Richard Gray was an aerospace research pilot at Nasa's Johnson Space Center in Houston, from 1978 until he was transferred to Ames-Dryden Flight Research Center, now Nasa Armstrong.

At JSC he was chief project pilot on the WB-57F high-altitude research aircraft and served as the prime chase pilot in the T-38 aircraft for video documentation of the landing portion of space shuttle orbital flight tests.

A naval aviator, Richard Gray flew 48 combat missions in F-4s over Vietnam while assigned to squadron VF-111 aboard the USS Coral Sea in 1972.

Gray was fatally injured on November 8, 1982, in the crash of a Cessna T-37 aircraft while on a flight to hone his skills flying the airplane.

(Inputs from Nasa's website)