By By JOHN EBY / Dowagiac Daily News
CASSOPOLIS – Capt. Iven Carl Kincheloe Jr. embodied "an Air Force public relations dream come true," Maj. Gen. Curtis M. Bedke, commander of the Air Force Flight Test Center at Edwards Air Force Base, Calif., said at Saturday's rainy rededication of Cass County's Kincheloe Memorial Park.
Kincheloe fulfilled "the popular image of the test pilot: ruggedly handsome good looks, a friendly, personable nature, articulate and brimming with confidence," said Bedke, who graduated from the Air Force Academy in Colorado in 1977.
"It's a real honor for me to stand here today representing the U.S. Air Force, which just had its 59th birthday," he said. "It is the world's first and only air force with truly global reach. In many ways we owe that to young aviators of Capt. Kincheloe's generation who kicked off that revolution in modern air power. Their efforts gave us the momentum for the subsequent decades and our advancements. They made the Air Force what it is today. They led in the truest sense of the word. They put their skills and their lives on the line. They knew they would be the first into unknown territory, and they also accepted that some of them would not come back. So many of them did not live long enough to see the legacy that they left, but if they had, I'm sure they would be very, very proud."
Bedke accumulated 4,100 flight hours in 57 different aircraft.
He has served the National Security Agency as deputy director.
"Greetings from sunny Edwards Air Force Base," Bedke told the crowd peeking out from under umbrellas. "There's a reason we put it in the middle of the Mojave Desert. We have about 350 good days. The other 15 you'll see a cloud once in a while."
"I didn't know Kinch. I'm way too young for that," Bedke continued. "I can't tell the heartfelt stories" other speakers shared, although "I'm honored to hear those stories and to meet some of these people. But I can represent the test pilots of the U.S. Air Force, and there are others here, not to honor us, but to honor Kinch."
Bedke said after Kincheloe flew his last combat mission in Korea in May 1952, he looked forward to a long-awaited test pilot assignment.
"But to his disappointment," Bedke said, "he was ordered to Nellis Air Force Base, Nevada, to be a gunnery instructor. Then, to add to this frustrating situation, he was reduced in rank to first lieutenant because he had been made a captain as a combat promotion. He immediately applied for a transfer to test pilot school at the Air Force base, but it didn't come."
Kincheloe's frustration reached the point where he almost quit the Air Force.
Conflict in Korea ceased in the summer of 1953. "Kinch was still unhappy that he was not at Edwards, so he began to think about resigning. Two aircraft manufacturers had actually offered him jobs in production testing. Kinch knew he'd have to make up his mind soon, but he was reluctant to leave the Air Force," Bedke said.
Kincheloe learned from a Pentagon friend about an opening at Empire Test Pilot School in England, where students came from the United States, Great Britain, Thailand, Australia, Canada, France, Italy, the Netherlands and Norway. They attended classes in the morning and devoted afternoons to testing assignments with turboprops, propeller-driven aircraft, gliders, multi-engine bombers and helicopters.
Kincheloe felt "better than ever" when he completed Empire in December 1954, Bedke said. "Now he was a fully-qualified test pilot. His dream had finally come true at Edwards."
Bedke described the X-2 with its stainless steel wings and tail and a copper-nickel fuselage. "Its engine burned a mixture of oxygen and alcohol. This dangerous aircraft had to be launched from a B-50 bomber in flight.
"At 9:17 on Sept. 7, 1956, the X-2 dropped from the belly of the B-50 at 29,500 feet," Bedke narrated, "and Kinch started his journey to an altitude no man had ever attained, his rocket spitting out a big, long, white trail" as he sped upward at 1,500 mph; 2:13 after he began his ascent, the engines ran out of fuel, but the momentum took him higher.
"Iven Kincheloe was effectively in space," Bedke said. "Almost 100-percent of the earth's atmosphere was beneath him. The real kicker here for those of us who fly was that there was no air to support the X-2, no air for the controls to operate. The sun's rays, unfiltered by the atmosphere, coming into the cockpit, were so bright that Kinch literally couldn't read his kneepad … public reaction to this feat was intense."
On June 25, 1958, Kincheloe was one of nine pilots selected for the Air Force's Man in Space Soonest (MISS) project along with the first man to walk on the moon, Neil Armstrong. "Those of us who fly all know Kinch."
"Hallelujah!" proclaimed 1945 Dowagiac classmate Edwin Darr. "This day has finally arrived. We didn't plan on this rain," which scratched scheduled flyovers.
As chairman of the Kincheloe Memorial Restoration Committee, Darr started work in May 2003.
"I was very excited when City Manager Bill Nelson and Superintendent Larry Crandall donated the flagpole from our old high school to honor Carl, who always upheld the slogan on the headstone, 'Enter to learn, leave to serve.' Serve he did," Darr said. "The old Dowagiac high school (Central) will be torn down, but this flagpole will remain as a memento of Carl's school days. Thanks to Harold Peterson and Mike Szymonski for reinstalling it here with the help of Dowagiac Public Works."
Darr thanked the Cass County Road Commission and Engineer-Manager Joseph Bellina for transporting and placing the three boulders added to the display. "The stonework and the mounting of the bronze plaques, plus many other details, were graciously performed by Joe Linton of Michiana Monuments. God bless you, Joe, for all you've done to honor Kinch. And I don't know what we would have done without Dr. Fred Mathews, who got the ball rolling, assisted by Eileen Crouse, director of community affairs at Southwestern Michigan College."
The restoration committee also included Kincheloe Elementary School Principal Dan Smith, Penn Township Supervisor John K. Gore, SMC Museum Director Steve Arseneau, Purdue fraternity brothers Robert Baker and Walter Cripe and Wilber Breseman, past commander of Marcellus VFW Post 4054, and Master Sgt. George MacDonald and his scrapbook-designing daughter, Hannah, who presented her collection to Mathews for inclusion in the SMC museum along with a video of the ceremony.