Stanley Paul Butchart, 85; a top research pilot at Edwards

Stanley Paul Butchart, a top research pilot at Edwards Air Force Base in the 1950s, died Monday in Lancaster of complications related to old age, said Alan Brown, a spokesman for NASA’s Dryden Flight Research Center. Butchart was 85.

Butchart flew a number of early research airplanes and often piloted planes that launched rocket-powered experimental aircraft.

He once calculated that he had flown 100 types of aircraft and had “soloed in everything except a hot-air balloon.”

While flying a B-29 aircraft in 1955, Butchart jettisoned an attached X-1A rocket plane moments before it exploded. For saving his aircraft and crew, he was awarded a medal for exceptional service.

Butchart had flown at Edwards since 1951 when he joined the National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics’ High-Speed Flight Research Station, which later became NASA’s Dryden facility.

In 1966, he became chief pilot and then director of flight operations at Dryden before retiring in 1976.

Born in New Orleans on March 11, 1922, Butchart trained as a civilian pilot before joining the Navy in 1942.

During World War II, he served with future President George H.W. Bush in a torpedo bomber squadron on the U.S. aircraft carrier San Jacinto in the South Pacific. The pilots kept in touch and several, including Butchart, attended the 1997 dedication of the George Bush Presidential Library and Museum at Texas A&M; University.

After the war, Butchart earned bachelor’s degrees in aeronautical and mechanical engineering in 1950 from the University of Washington and worked as a design engineer for Boeing Co.

He is survived by four children and numerous grandchildren and great-grandchildren. His wife, Miriam, died in 2002.

A memorial service will be held at 11 a.m. Monday at the Lancaster Elks Lodge, 240 East Ave. K, Lancaster.