Chalmers Goodlin

Chalmers Goodlin was born in 1923 in Greensburg

Goodlin was born on January 2, 1923, in Greensburg, Pennsylvania. He began learning to fly at 15. In 1941 he joined the Royal Canadian Air Force, since the United States had not yet entered World War II.

He reached the European theater in 1942. That December the U.S. Navy asked him to return home, where he trained as a Navy test pilot. In December 1943 he left active duty and joined Bell Aircraft as a test pilot.

Goodlin was the second pilot to fly the X-1, first gliding it on October 11, 1946. On December 9, 1946, he became the first to fly it under power. He flew it 26 times, but the U.S. Air Force took over the program after a dispute over his pay, which he later denied.

In 1948 he served as a Mahal volunteer pilot in the Israeli Air Force during the 1948 Arab-Israeli War. After the fighting he flew Douglas DC-4 aircraft on humanitarian missions bringing Jews to Israel from Aden, Arabia and Germany.

He later owned aviation companies and helped found the Dutch charter company Transavia. He became chairman and CEO of the Burnelli Company. He died on October 20, 2005, in Palm Beach, Florida.