Quinten 'QB' H. Burden 1919-2013
Quentin H. “QB” Burden was born on 2 May 1919 in Coeur d’Alene, ID and passed away on Tuesday, June 11 2013 . He was a Charter Member of SETP.
QB served in the
U.S. Navy from 1941-1946. He joined the
Douglas Aircraft Company in 1950 as an engineering and production test pilot on
the AD, F-3D and A-3D airplanes. He
attended the U.S. Naval Test Pilot School as a contractor pilot and graduated
with Class 14. He was subsequently
assigned as an A-3D Engineering Project Test Pilot from 1955 to 1959 performing
5 complete A-3D structural and 4 aerodynamic demonstrations. In 1969, he was assigned to the DC-8 program
and performed the flutter flight test program, the minimum landing distance and
engine air starts.
Quentin
transferred to Lockheed as a project test pilot at the Missiles and Space
Company and performed the first flight on the QT-2 airplane, a forerunner of
Stealth airplanes for the Army. He
performed the structural, aerodynamic and engine demonstrations in addition to
the extensive acoustical signature research program. In 1968, he flew the first flight of the
Q-Star, a Lockheed test bed for exploration of airborne micro acoustic
signature phenomena. He flew extensive
flight test of power plants including an airplane version of the Wright-Rotary
Engine. In 1969, he repeated the same
test programs for the YO-3A.
QB was twice
assigned as a technical advisor to the U.S. Army Covert Aviation Systems
Command in Southeast Asia, furthering the research and development of various
Lockheed airplanes and weapons systems under actual combat conditions. He later became the Chief Engineering Test
Pilot for Lockheed’s Missiles and Space Company until his retirement in 1982.
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