Guy M. Townsend

Guy Mannering Townsend III (October 25, 1920 – March 28, 2011) was a United States Air Force brigadier general, test pilot, and combat veteran. As an Air Force officer, he served as chief of bomber test at Wright-Patterson Air Force Base, flew as co-pilot on the first flight of the B-52 Stratofortress, was test force director for the XB-70 Valkyrie, and served as program director for the C-5 Galaxy and B-1 Lancer. He was the first military pilot to fly the B-47 Stratojet, B-50 Superfortress, B-52 Stratofortress, and the prototype of the KC-135 Stratotanker. During his years at Boeing, he was the head of the Supersonic Transport operations organization.

Biography

Early years Guy Townsend was born in Columbus, Mississippi, in 1920 and graduated from San Jacinto High School in Houston, Texas, in June 1939. He attended Texas A&M University in College Station, Texas, where he studied aeronautical engineering from September 1939 to June 1941. He returned home in October 1945 to serve for three years as pilot and flight test officer at Wright-Patterson Air Force Base near Dayton, Ohio. Townsend demonstrated how the B-29 could be flown to 40,000 feet, well above its intended service ceiling.

B-52 Stratofortress

Townsend transitioned to the B-52 program, an aircraft General Nathan Twining called "the long rifle of the air age." He participated with contractor pilots in Phase I and conducted Phases II and IV. The flight from Boeing Field to Moses Lake Army Air Base (later renamed Larson Air Force Base) near Moses Lake, Washington, lasted two hours and fifty-one minutes. At the time, this was the longest and most successful first flight in Boeing history. In February 1958, Townsend reported to the Directorate of Operations in the headquarters of Strategic Air Command at Offutt Air Force Base, Nebraska as deputy chief of the Requirements Division. The B-47: "A Revolution in Aviation" — A panel discussion on the design and operation of the B-47. The event was held on December 8, 2007, at the Museum of Flight in Seattle, Washington to mark the 60th anniversary of the first flight of the XB-47. The Boeing B-52 Stratofortress-A Story of Design Longevity — A panel presentation on the B-52's exceptional service life. The event was held on February 21, 2009, at the Museum of Flight in Seattle, Washington.

Townsend and his wife Ann lived in the Covenant Shores community on Mercer Island, Washington.

Guy Mannering Townsend III died in his sleep on March 28, 2011.

Honors Townsend was awarded the following medals for his military service: Legion of Merit, Distinguished Flying Cross, Air Medal, Distinguished Unit Citation Emblem, Presidential Unit Citation, National Defense Service Medal, and the Air Force Longevity Service Award Ribbon. In 1994, the Museum of Flight presented him with the Pathfinder Award recognizing those individuals with ties to the Pacific Northwest who have made significant contributions to the development of the aerospace industry. In 1995, Townsend was inducted into the Aerospace Walk of Honor in Lancaster, California, that recognizes test pilots who have contributed to aviation and space research and development. On October 25, 2002, the Flight Test Historical Foundation recognized Townsend and five others as distinguished flight test pioneers for their work on the B-52 flight test program.

Townsend was the first military pilot to fly the B-47 Stratojet, B-50 Superfortress, B-52 Stratofortress, and the 367-80 prototype of the KC-135 Stratotanker. He also test flew the Convair B-36, North American B-45, Convair XB-46, Martin XB-48, and the Martin XB-51. As of October 1968, he had logged more than 8,000 hours of flying time—5,000 in experimental flight testing in many different aircraft.