Jet Pioneer's Legacy Includes 707 Barrel Rolls
When Tex Johnston barrel-rolled the four-engined, prototype
Boeing 367-80 ("Dash 80") over Lake Washington in 1955 -- twice --
James R. Gannett was flying right seat. Aero-News was saddened to
learn Gannett died of a brain aneurism on Saturday, June 17, in
Redmond, WA. The retired Boeing test pilot was 83.
"He was a good father and a good husband," son Craig Gannett
told the Seattle Post-Intelligencer, "but the love of flying and
solving problems was really his passion."
Born February 4, 1923, Gannett caught the flying bug after his
father gave him $1 to ride in a plane. That single ride turned into
a master's degree in aeronautical engineering from the University
of Michigan, and a lifetime of aviation accomplishments.
Gannett spent 1950-1954
at Edwards Air Force Base in California testing experimental
aircraft alongside celebrities like Chuck Yeager -- when he wasn't
flying one of 55 combat missions during a nine-month stint in the
Korean War.
In 1954, Gannett went to work for Boeing, where he first tested
the Dash-80, the experimental version of the 707, and the first of
the Boeing 700-series airliners.
"He left the Air Force when I was about 8 weeks old," Craig
Gannett said. "We came to Seattle; we drove into town literally the
day they rolled the Dash 80 out of the hanger…He literally
arrived at the dawn of the jet age."
The 707 was Jim Gannett's first project, and he continued
testing it and other 707 versions throughout his tenure at Boeing.
Gannett helped develop the FAA pilot certification rules for jets,
and trained airline pilots in the 707.
"A lot of his students went out and populated the airlines at
the beginning of jets," said John Cashman, director of Boeing's
flight crew operations and a former colleague of Gannett. That work
earned him the inaugural Iven C. Kinsheloe award in 1958 from the
Society of Experimental Test Pilots.
Gannett was the project
pilot for Boeing's SST, the supersonic transport plane, and also
tested the 727, 737, 747 and military adaptations of Boeing
aircraft, including the 707-based AWACS (Airborne Warning and
Control System).
Craig Gannett said his father was more of an engineer than a
daredevil. He spent the better part of his life developing better
instruments for jetliners, some of which, Cashman said, are still
used in today's Boeing 747s, 757s and 767s.
True to his passion, Gannett never stopped flying... in fact,
the P-I reports he flew a single-engine Cessna on the Wednesday
before he died.
(Aero-News thanks the Boeing Historical Archive for the
photos of the Dash-80 barrel roll.)
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