Jack Ridley

Colonel Jackie Lynwood Ridley (June 16, 1915 – March 12, 1957) was an aeronautical engineer, USAF test pilot and chief of the U.S. Air Force's Flight Test Engineering Laboratory. He helped develop and test many Cold War era military aircraft. He worked on the Bell X-1, the first aircraft to achieve supersonic flight, and was highly respected among fellow test pilots, most notably Chuck Yeager, for his engineering skills.

Early life and military career Jack Ridley was born on June 16, 1915, in Garvin, Oklahoma. Ridley graduated from a high school in Sulphur, Oklahoma in 1935. Following high school, he entered the ROTC program at the University of Oklahoma where he received his Bachelor of Science degree in mechanical engineering in 1939. In July 1941, the young engineer received a commission in the U.S. Army field artillery and began a military career, which would continue for the rest of his life. The science of flight soon attracted him, however, and it was not long before he transferred to the Army Air Forces. Lieutenant Ridley was sent to the Flying Training School at Kelly Army Air Base in Texas, where he earned his pilot wings in May 1942.

Wartime career as a test pilot The Air Corps needed engineering-trained pilots and, instead of being sent into an operational combat unit, Ridley was ordered to the Consolidated Vultee plant in Fort Worth, Texas, where his initial assignment was to conduct acceptance tests on four-engine B-24 Liberator bombers. Soon thereafter, he was named as engineering liaison officer on both the B-24 and B-32 programs. Even at that early date, the Air Corps was developing the six-engine B-36 intercontinental bomber, later to become the mainstay of the postwar Strategic Air Command, and Ridley found himself assigned to that program as well.

Postwar career Ridley was sent to Wright Field, Ohio, and assigned to the Air Materiel Command's Flight Test Division. Ridley went to the Air Materiel Command Flight Performance School from January through May 1946. In the 1983 film The Right Stuff, Ridley was portrayed, including beyond the time of his death, by Levon Helm. Scenes with the Bell X-1 occurred while Ridley was still alive. However, the scene in which Yeager crashes the Lockheed F-104 Starfighter in 1963 occurred after Ridley's death in the 1957 plane crash.

In 1996, Ridley was inducted into the Aerospace Walk of Honor and was inducted into the National Aviation Hall of Fame in Dayton, Ohio, in 2004. He was survived by his wife, Nell, and son Jack Ridley, Jr. He is buried at Arlington National Cemetery.