Group lot of five limited edition FDCs and commemorative covers with cachets honoring famous test flights and pilots, each signed a notable pilot or engineer, including: Chuck Yeager, Fred Ascani, Robert Cardenas, Bob Hoover, and Gerald M. Truszynski, whose signature remains quite scarce. Each pilot was present and directly involved with the X-1 flight as it was planned and took place. Yeager was the pilot, Ascani was the backup pilot on the ground, Bob Hoover was in the chase plane in the air and Cardenas Flew the mother ship that carried and dropped the X-1; Truzynski was on the mother ship as well. In overall fine condition.
Truszynski joined the National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics, a forerunner of NASA, in 1944, and three years later transferred to Edwards Air Force Base in California, where he helped design instrumentation for the X-1, the aircraft in which pilot Chuck Yeager broke the sound barrier in 1947. Truszynski later supervised the development of instrumentation for various experimental aircraft before coming to NASA’s Washington headquarters in 1961 as an associate administrator. He developed global tracking networks and communication systems for all of NASA’s flight programs.
