Stanley J.Kakol 1926-2006

Stanley Kakol in X-22

Stanley Kakol (left) with fellow test pilot Paul Miller

Mr. Kakol attended the University of Rochester, Hobart College and the University of Pennsylvania. During the early Navy V-5 and V-12A flight training program he graduated from the U.S. Navy Flight School at Pensacola on his 21st birthday in November 1947, and after completing a tour of duty with a patrol squadron flying the PB4Y-2, was assigned to VX-1, where he served as a Project Pilot in the low altitude night searchlight and auto-pilot evaluation of the only Douglas AD-5S. He was also a Project Pilot on OP-VIO9 in the development of helicopter sonar both day and night, and project BU-V77 minesweeping with helicopters. He joined General Electric in early 1958 as an Engineering Test Pilot and flew the HSS-IF (S-58T) and the HSS-2 (S-61) helicopter on development flight tests of the GE-T-58 turbo-shaft engine. Flight tests covered the engine starting envelope, inlet distortion, load sharing, transient and steady state free turbine droop, salt water ingestion, power management, performance, and emergency throttle operation. He left GE for Bell Aerospace as their Chief Experimental Test Pilot and flew the V/STOL ducted propeller X-22A aircraft on its first and subsequent 100 flights. He conducted all of the structural demonstrations and handling qualities investigation per mil spec. 8708 to the limit of the aircraft's capability, and after experiencing a double hydraulic failure in the flight control system, survived an emergency landing in which the airplane was destroyed. He delivered a technical paper on the X-22A to the X1 SETP 1966 Symposium, and the East Coast Section. He left Bell for Overseas National Airways (DNA) as a Lockheed Electra Captain, and later upgrading to the DC-9. He left DNA for a position as a Flight Test Pilot for the FAA's Eastern Region. He was then employed by General Electric again as an Engineering Test Pilot assigned to Construcciones Aeronáuticas, S.A. (CASA) of Spain performing engineering test flights of the CN-235 Regional Air Transport powered by GE CT-7-7 turbo-prop engine leading to FAR-25 certification. He participated in the 1984 Farnborough Air Show, and the 1985 Paris Air Show demonstrating this aircraft. He had flown over 40 different aircraft; has amassed over 20,000 flight hours,