“General Joe”: Remembering Pilot and Astronaut Joe Engle

Just months following the passing of Richard Truly, pilot of Space Shuttle Columbia on STS-2, the world has lost that mission’s commander. Astronaut, test pilot, aeronautical engineer, and the first pilot to fly two different winged vehicles into space, Maj. Gen. Joe Henry Engle, USAF (Ret.) passed away at his home in Houston, Texas, on July 10. He was 91.

The Smithsonian’s National Air and Space Museum mourns alongside others around the world, remembering his passion for aviation and spaceflight seen in his decades of involvement as a pilot, astronaut, administrator, and spaceflight consultant. His experiences as a test pilot of both the X-15 aircraft and Space Shuttle orbiters Enterprise, Columbia, and Discovery made him the first person to ever fly two winged vehicles to space, amongst his many noteworthy achievements. The Museum was most honored to host him as the earliest Space Shuttle commander to attend the arrival ceremony of Discovery at the Steven F. Udvar-Hazy Center in 2012.

Joe the Aviator

A native of Abilene, Kansas, Engle received his bachelor of science degree from the University of Kansas in 1955. After graduation, he joined the U.S. Air Force through the ROTC program, earning his pilot’s wings in 1958. He quickly showed his exceptional piloting skills as a fighter pilot, catching the eye of Lt. Col. Charles “Chuck” Yeager, who supported Engle’s application to the USAF Test Pilot School at Edwards Air Force Base. After Engle graduated in 1962, Yeager selected him for the newly-formed Aerospace Research Test Pilot School at Edwards that was created to train military astronauts. Following the completion of this program in 1963, Engle was chosen as a project pilot for the revolutionary X-15 hypersonic aircraft program.

Designed and built by North American Aviation in cooperation with NASA and the U.S. Air Force, the X-15 became one of the most successful experimental aircraft programs in history, exploring the challenges of hypersonic flight above Mach 5 - five times the speed of sound. The lessons learned about extreme airframe heating, hypersonic aerodynamics, and the controlled entry into space and re-entry through the atmosphere were directly applicable to the forthcoming Space Shuttle program.

Engle piloted his first X-15 mission on October 7, 1963, flying X-15-1. Over the course of the next two years, he flew a total of 16 flights, 12 of which exceeded Mach 5. Seven of those flights were in X-15-1, which is in the museum’s collection and will soon return to display in the Boeing Milestones of Flight Hall. Scheduled to reopen in 2025. On two missions, Engle flew his X-15 over 50 miles above the Earth, essentially out of the Earth’s atmosphere, thereby qualifying for Air Force astronaut wings. His last X-15 flight occurred on August 10, 1965.

Joe the Astronaut

Engle’s ambition did not stop at just reaching space: He wanted to orbit the Earth. Though the Air Force withdrew his application to be part of the third group of astronauts selected in late 1963, and the fourth group was all scientists, Engle was essentially a shoo-in for the fifth group. Introduced to the public in April 1966, the final group of Apollo and Skylab astronauts unknowingly required the most patience, as those not selected for those programs would need to wait over a decade for the Space Shuttle Program to begin test flights to gain test flight hours with a path towards orbit. Ultimately, the respect Engle earned as an X-15 pilot gained him early assignments as support crew for Apollo 10, then backup lunar module pilot for Apollo 14. But his assignment to the Apollo 17 mission, for which he had started training for with mission commander Eugene Cernan and command module pilot Ronald Evans, ended when NASA management acceded to pressure from the scientific community to assign a geologist to the final lunar landing mission. As Harrison Schmitt replaced him on the Moon, Engle was left in the long waiting game as he had missed Skylab assignments by that point.

File URL

What lay ahead for Engle required years of waiting, but when the first test version of the Space Shuttle was ready, so was Engle. Enterprise did not carry him to orbit, but the Approach and Landing Test phase of the program gave Engle a role in providing critical feedback on the design and management of the “aircraft-like” portion of flying the orbiter. Engle also earned an early flight assignment as commander of the second launch of the program. With Richard Truly as his pilot, the two men launched aboard Columbia in November 1981. The pair performed important checkouts of the remote manipulator system (RMS, commonly called the CanadArm) and orbital maneuvering engines, both of which were vital to long-term operations expected in space for scientific research and even assembly of a space station someday.

To complete the trials of the new orbiter, Engle and Truly brought Columbia back to Earth in a pre-planned manual mode, which tested their ability to use hand controllers to maneuver the orbiter if the four computers meant to run an automated re-entry failed. This made Engle the first (and perhaps last) to ever land a Space Shuttle orbiter manually, which was a testament to his X-15 piloting experience.

Engle flew to orbit a second time four years after STS-2 when he commanded Discovery’s sixth mission, STS-51I. With the shuttle now expected to perform crucial tasks like satellite delivery, Engle’s team was also required to repair a malfunctioning satellite previously put in orbit. Not only was the RMS required, but astronauts performed spacewalks during the rendezvous with the languishing Syncom-IV3, which would test any commander’s fortitude. Engle ended both of his missions as commander of Space Shuttle orbiters in perhaps the most poetic way: Landings for STS-2 and STS-51I occurred where he landed his previous three X-15 space missions: Edwards Air Force Base in California.

Commanding two different winged vehicles on space missions is an exceedingly rare feat, with only one other person (Space Shuttle and Virgin Galactic astronaut Fred Sturckow) having done the same in history. And few even commanded more than one orbiter, while Joe Engle commanded three: Enterprise, previously in the collection of the Museum and now at the Intrepid Museum in New York City; Columbia, lost on the tragic STS-107 mission in 2003; and Discovery, now featured at our Udvar-Hazy Center in Chantilly, Virginia. Few pilots or astronauts have as intimate knowledge of two of the most famous vehicles in the Smithsonian collections as Joe Engle did.

Engle flew an astounding 14,000 hours in 180 different types of aircraft over his impressive career. For his military service, he was awarded the Department of Defense Distinguished Service Medal, the USAF Distinguished Service Medal, and the Distinguished Flying Cross with Oak Leaf Cluster. He was awarded the NASA Distinguished Service Medal and the Space Flight Medal. Engle also received the Collier, Harmon International, Iven Kincheloe, Robert Goddard, Lawrence Sperry and Thomas D. White trophies for his exceptional accomplishments.