Boone Guyton Boone Tarleton Guyton United States Navy , ( September 4 , 1913 – April 4 , 1996 ) was a Naval Aviation Cadet , experimental test pilot , author and businessman . In a flying career spanning the biplane era through the jet age , Guyton was perhaps best known for his test pilot years at Vought - Sikorsky ( Chance Vought ) and his participation in the development of the F4U Corsair and various other military aircraft including the OS2U Kingfisher and the radical Vought V - 173 flying pancake . Early life . Guyton was born in East St . Louis , Illinois , September 4 , 1913 . His birth certificate incorrectly spelled his first name “ Bond ” but was later corrected . His father William Henry Guyton , the Superintendent Transportation , E . St . Louis & Suburban Railroad , died in 1921 before Boone ’ s 8th birthday . His mother , Martha ( Windhorst ) Guyton raised Boone and his older brother William , much of it during the depression . Boone graduated from East St . Louis High School in 1931 . Guyton then attended Central Methodist College in Fayette , Missouri , graduating in 1935 and starring on the 1934 football team which won the Missouri College Athletic Union ( MCAU ) championship . Guyton played end and led the league in scoring , setting a college record for most touchdowns caught in the end - zone ( seven ) . He was named on the all - conference team and earned a mention in " Ripley ’ s Believe It or Not " for having scored all his touchdowns without carrying the ball across the goal line . Introduction to aviation . In 1927 at the age of 14 , Guyton became fascinated by aviation as he monitored the feats of Charles Lindbergh in the Spirit of St . Louis . Lindbergh was young Guyton ’ s consummate hero , though Guyton would later feel that a flying career would be economically impossible to pursue . Upon graduating from College in 1935 , with the Great Depression in the United States , Guyton ’ s options were few and far between . His college dean , feeling he would be a good teacher helped Guyton land a teaching position . Though grateful , Guyton felt uneasy and did not perceive himself a teacher . Just after the teaching offer , a large brown envelope arrived from the U . S . Navy announcing a new aviation cadet program at Naval Air Station Pensacola , Florida . Guyton pursued the offer and was accepted . In 1936 he graduated tenth in the first graduating class despite a 44 % attrition rate . For the next three years , Guyton flew for the Navy out of Naval Air Station North Island San Diego , California and off carriers USS Lexington ( CV - 2 ) and USS Saratoga ( CV - 3 ) in various locations around the world , including Midway , Honolulu , the French Frigate Shoals , the Aleutians and Panama . Guyton was a member of Bombing Squadron Five flying mostly Boeing F4B - 4s . In 1937 , it was Guyton ’ s squadron on the USS Lexington which took part in the search for Amelia Earhart . Guyton , however , was on leave at the time . Test pilot . Nearing the end of his three years as a Naval aviator , Guyton attended a TWA ground school for the DC - 3 aircraft . With only a few weeks remaining at NAS North Island , Guyton reluctantly accepted a position to join TWA as a co - pilot . However , with just days remaining in the Navy , Guyton met a factory representative from Vought - Sikorsky and subsequently landed a test - pilot position for Vought teaching the French Navy to fly American dive - bombers . His last day as a Navy pilot was July 16 , 1939 . Guyton spent the next three days at Vought ’ s Stratford , Connecticut factory in a “ study in frenzy ” , preparing for France and learning as much as possible about the SB2U Vindicator ( the French version of that plane had been dubbed the V - 156 ) before departing for Paris . Also during those three days , Guyton caught a glimpse of a mockup of Vought ' s next generation high - speed , single - seat fighter , the XF4U - 1 . The production version would later be known as the F4U Corsair . He departed for Paris on the French liner SS Champlain , arriving in Paris in August , 1939 , less than a month before the Nazi Blitzkrieg against Poland and the beginning of World War II . In France , with war looming . Guyton spent six months in France , first living in Paris and flying out of Orly Airport . He was later moved to Brest , ( flying out of the air station at Lanvéoc Poulmic ) after the nighttime curfews , air - raid sirens and trips to the bomb shelters became all - too - frequent occurrences in Paris . The bulk of Guyton ’ s time was spent testing the new V - 156 aircraft as they arrived from the U . S . and training various French pilots . The planes were to be used , it was believed , to attack Nazi tanks when they arrived . While stationed at Orly Field , Guyton nearly became only the second American pilot to fly the vaunted Messerschmitt Bf 109 fighter prior to World War II ( the only known American to fly it at that time was Charles Lindbergh himself , who had flown it in 1938 and praised its abilities ) . The Messerschmitt pilot had landed in France with engine trouble earlier that year and the plane was brought to the French Aerodrome at Bricy , near Orly . Guyton had arranged a test flight following French racing pilot , winner of the Thompson Trophy just three years earlier in Los Angeles . Unfortunately , Detroyat experienced mechanical troubles with the Messerschmitt ’ s brakes and plane was damaged upon landing to the extent that Guyton would miss his opportunity . By the time January 1940 arrived with rising tensions in Europe , Nazis threatening France and the pressures of so - called neutrality laws , Vought terminated Guyton ’ s assignment and sent him back to the States . He exited France via Italy where he boarded the ocean liner which ran under the American flag and was theoretically safe from German U - boat attacks as it headed through the Strait of Gibraltar . Guyton arrived in New York harbor on January 24 , 1940 . The Vought years . Upon returning to the States , Guyton found himself once again looking for work . Things at Vought were quiet as the new XF4U - 1 Corsair prototype was not yet airworthy and the OS2U Kingfisher had yet to roll off the assembly line . With no other options , Guyton accepted an offer from TWA and finally flew for the airline he ’ d passed up three years earlier . Guyton ’ s airline career officially began on March 6 , flying mostly DC - 3s . But as luck would have it , a job offer would arrive from Vought ’ s Rex Beisel a mere three months later to fill an open position for an experimental test pilot . At the end of May 1940 , Guyton left TWA and reported to Vought ’ s chief of flight test , Lyman Bullard , shortly before the Corsair ’ s maiden flight on May 29 . Guyton continued testing the XF4U - 1 Corsair as well as various versions of the SB2U Vindicator and OS2U Kingfisher . On 25 June 1942 , he would fly the first production F4U - 1 Corsair to roll of the assembly line and from that point on , the pace of the Corsair testing became frenetic and Guyton would spend much less time in the other aircraft . Back in the F4U - 1 on June 26 , Guyton then got married on the 27th , took one day off and returned to flight testing on the 29th . The next few years also included frequent trips to Navy bases around the country to train Navy pilots on the fighter that would soon carry them into combat . One such " student " was Captain Tom Blackburn of the VF - 17 ; also known as the VFA - 103 " Jolly Rogers " . Outside of his Corsair testing efforts , Guyton was also named the chief experimental test pilot for the Vought V - 173 “ flying flapjack ” ( or flying pancake ) prototype . He took the V - 173 on its maiden flight on November 23 , 1942 . Destined to become the next great propeller driven fighter design , development of the XF5U ( the high speed fighter version of the V - 173 ) would be stopped in 1947 before it ever flew . The Navy had switched focus to jet - propelled aircraft . In late October 1944 , Guyton participated in Navy Fighter Meet at NAS Patuxent River , Maryland where pilots from the military and various manufacturers tested and compared military aircraft . It was there that he finally got a chance to fly a captured Japanese A6M Zero fighter and the revolutionary , jet propelled Bell YP – 59A Airacomet . By 1945 , Guyton had logged more than 650 hours testing Corsairs ( XF4U - 1 , F4U - 1 , XF4U - 3 , XF4U - 4 , F4U - 4 etc . ) and nearly 33 hours in the V - 173 In 1948 Vought moved the factory from Stratford , Connecticut to Dallas , Texas . Guyton continued to fly later iterations of the Corsair ( F4U - 7 and AU - 1 ) as well as Vought jets : the F6U Pirate and the F7U Cutlass . He decided to leave Vought in 1951 after 12 years , completing his career as an experimental test pilot . His last flight for Vought occurred on April 17 , 1951 when he volunteered to deliver a F6U Pirate from Texas to Sorocco , New Mexico where it would join other discarded , obsolete aircraft . During the flight , a hydraulic failure forced Guyton to make an emergency landing , which he managed to walk away from unscathed . The Lindbergh connection . In early 1943 , Charles Lindbergh began consulting to Vought , related primarily to the engineering of the F4U . Both Lyman Bullard and Guyton debriefed the legendary pilot on the characteristics of the F4U - 1 before Lindbergh ’ s first Corsair flight on January 6 , 1943 . Lindbergh flew the plane three more times on January 6 and then left Vought , not returning for a month . At dinner one night , Lindbergh and Guyton shared some thoughts . Some were on aeronautical subjects and some not , including their mutual acquaintance , French pilot . Lindbergh mentioned that it was Detroyat who rescued him from the masses of exuberant fans the night he landed the ‘ ’ Spirit of St . Louis ’ ’ at Le Bourget . In March 1943 , Guyton suffered a near - fatal crash landing after the engine in his F4U seized at 22 , 000 feet and he attempted to glide it back to the factory ’ s airport where it literally broke in half upon impact . One of his first visitors at Bridgeport hospital , besides Guyton ’ s wife , was Lindbergh himself . Guyton ’ s relationship with Lindbergh continued throughout the war including a dinner at the newly acquired Lindbergh Westport , Connecticut home in late 1944 Post - Vought years . Leaving Vought , Guyton returned to New England with his wife and four children , settling in Woodbridge , Connecticut where they conceived a fifth child . Career - wise , Guyton assumed various management positions at Hamilton Standard , United Technologies Corporation - Missiles and Space Division , and eventually his own company . Guyton continued to fly recreationally until 1982 when he stopped for good , forty - seven years after joining the Naval Aviation Cadet program . He flew over 100 different aircraft including almost all of the top fighters of World War II ( P - 51 Mustang , Supermarine Spitfire , P - 47 Thunderbolt , P - 38 Lightning , F4F Wildcat , Japanese Zero , F6F Hellcat , Curtiss P - 40 ) , but he is best remembered as the chief experimental test pilot for the Corsair . During his retirement years , Guyton lectured on the Corsair and V - 173 and continued to write . His third and last book , " Whistling Death – the Test Pilot ’ s Story of the F4U Corsair " , was published in 1990 . Death . Guyton died from cancer 4 April 1996 at the age of 82 . He is buried in Woodbridge , CT where he spent the last 40 years of his life . He is survived by five children , eight grandchildren and five great - grandchildren .