ALEXANDRIA, Va. — Fred J. Ascani, a retired Air Force major general and former test pilot at California’s Edwards Air Force Base who set a world speed record in an F-86 jet fighter in 1951 and later oversaw the development of a supersonic bomber, has died at age 92.
Ascani, a B-17 pilot during World War II, died of lung cancer March 28 at his home in Alexandria.
As a test pilot with the 3077th Experimental Group at Edwards Air Force Base, where he became director of experimental flight test and engineering in 1950, Ascani flew about 50 types of experimental aircraft.
They included the X-1, X-4, X-5 and the XF-92A, the forerunner of the delta-wing F-102.
Flying an F-86 Sabre jet 50 feet above ground around a 100-kilometer oval at the National Air Races in Detroit in 1951, Ascani set a world speed record for a closed course by flying 628.698 mph.
“A crowd of 91,000 gasped in awe as he streaked across the airport at the start and finish of the speed run,” said a news report.
The previous record was 605.230 mph, set in 1948.
The same year Ascani set the speed record, he became vice commander of the Air Force Flight Test Center at Edwards.
In 1954, he was named commander of the 86th Fighter Interceptor Group in Landstuhl, Germany, and a year later assumed command of the 50th Fighter Bomber Wing in Hahn, Germany.
In 1957, he was assigned to the Wright Air Development Center at Wright-Patterson Air Force Base in Ohio, where he served as deputy chief of staff, plans and operations. Two years later, he was named director of systems engineering.
Ascani was appointed deputy commander and system program director in 1961 of the XB-70 Valkyrie supersonic bomber, which flew at three times the speed of sound.
In 1964, Ascani became commander of the Systems Engineering Group and deputy commander of research and technology at Wright-Patterson.
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