Father: Joe Ernest Wolfe Snr, a druggist, Mother: Doris [Kennedy] Ed. High School prev. 3 yrs Commercial Pilot at Lovell Field in Chattanooga; Exhibition Flying here he is (r) in 1939, "one of the youngest stunt pilots in America"
... and in 1940, stunt flying an Aeronca 65C for the 'Tom Cat Overall Company';
"Another Wolfe speciality is to stall a motor in mid-air, climb from the cockpit, and crank the propeller in flight" - Macon News
Address in 1941: 118 Sequioa Drive, Chattanooga, TN Postings: 1FPP, 3FPP 5 accidents, 3 his fault: - 7 Aug 1941, an incident involving Tomahawk AK104; not blamed because he had "insufficient information on the type" - 25 Sep 1941, he damaged the starboard airscrew and undercarriage leg in Blenheim Z7625 while landing at Meir Aerodrome (Stoke-on-Trent), due to the leg 'jamming' - 1 Oct 1941, he stalled Blenheim Z7788 after a bad take-off and retracting the undercarriage too soon, also at Meir Aerodrome - 14 Dec 1941, a forced landing near Kendal in Boston Z2299, breaking off the front wheel, after persisting too far in bad weather - 23 Dec 1941, in Spitfire R6992, he took off from a narrow track rather than the runway, ran into a trench and damaged the undercarriage, then had to do a wheels-up landing at Colerne.
[Contract Terminated - "Unlikely to become an efficent ferry pilot" USAF from 2 Aug 1942, 25th Ferrying Squadron m. 29 Apr 1943 in Montana, Gertrude E [Dickerson] (divorced 1946) m. Sylvia [van Voast], from Houston, TX
Later Major, USAF
d. 19 Nov 1951 as pilot, one of three crew members who died in the crash of a B-47 Stratojet shortly after take-off from Edwards AFB, CA
The Chattanooga Times, 25 Nov 1951 said he was "Chief of Experimental test operations at Edwards AFB" (but this is not quite correct - he was an Assistant Chief of the Test Operations Branch) They also reported that he "served in the British RAF for 14 months as a first lieutenant [sic]"... but this is definitely not correct... And that "he was "one of the few test pilots to fly faster than the speed of sound in the Bell X-1" ... ... but this does not appear to be correct, either; see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_X-1_flights (his name does not appear). (He was stationed with Chuck Yeager at one time, though)
Buried Arlington National Cemetery, Arlington, Arlington County, Virginia, USA
Download ATA Pilot Personal Record (.zip file): |
Chattanooga Daily Times, 29 Jun 1950
Ancestry
1939 Chattanooga Air Show
Draft Card, dated 16 Oct 1940
