My first cousin, Major Harry Bolster, was killed in an XP-75 Eagle test flight crash on 10 October 1944 in aircraft 44-44549. A failure of the counter-rotating prop system caused the props to stop spinning. Harry tried a gliding landing at Eglin AFB but came up short of the runway and crashed. The XP-75 program was cancelled the following month. Harry was a fighter pilot with the American Volunteer Group (Flying Tigers) with a documented air-to-air kill before returning to the United States. Harry is buried at Hill of Rest Cemetery in Baytown, Texas. An image of the XP-75 is engraved on his headstone. 43 years later I began flying the F-15 Eagle.
A number of years ago I read a ‘worst aircraft’ book. In the book the author opined that the Eagle was a scam from the get go. Fisher didn’t want to build the aircraft so they decided to build something that would be a failure from the get go. Interesting thought.
