My father is Oliver Garland Barnes, Jr. and he was an aeronatical engineer at the Marietta plant from the late 1950's until he retired in the early 90's. He worked in flight dynamics at the end of the runway, by the wind tunnel (I think). I think he was an important part of the design team on the hummingbird. He was also a close freind with Harlan Quamme (sad to hear of his passing). In fact my date to my prom was his daughter Beth in 1978 and my older sister Cheryl was good freinds with his daughter Carolyn (I hope I got the names right!). Mr Harlan used to fly a helicopter to our house in Woodstock and land in our riding rink and take Dad flying. I never got to go but I think this is correct. I have photos of his kids riding our pony and surrey around the yard. Dad is 82 now and has advanced dementia. He is currently in the ICU on a vent with double pneumonia but we expect him to recover. He can't verify any facts because of his illness. As he recovers I am thinking of his life and thought of his Lockheed days and the Hummingbird and found this sight. What a treat. I have some items some who visit this site may find intresting. I have a wind tunnel test model, many photos, technical data sheets and info, paper weights, tie tacs, cuff links, and other memorabillia Dad collected from the progect. Dad would be proud to see folks still think of the Hummingbird as he worked hard on and loved the plane and all the good people who worked on the project.

Goodness sakes! Here I am on the net and the Hummingbird project just bangs me in the head. So happens that I joined up with Lockheed-Georgia Co. in Marietta, GA. (formerly the old Bell Bomber Plant). Still wet behind the ears and fresh out of the US Air Force having been trained in Flight Test Electronic Instrumentation, there was a need for my skills. The XV-4A was one of the projects to which I was assigned and later became the Lead Flight Test Electronics Tech. What memories I have from the Lockheed experiences! Sadly, the day that #1 bird went down, I had signed off the A/C as ready for flight to the pilot who was a civilian working for the US Army, whose home was in Newport News, VA. He was ready for flight. I went up to the control tower, as I always tried to do, in order to monitor the conversations. The aircraft did not have a telemetry system for us to remotely monitor, it had an on-board flight test data recorder, which was later recovered intact. It was horrible to listen in on the banter and last words of the pilot who was to perish doing what he loved to do. The crash which occurred happened to be in the Addison Heights area across from the Blackwell School, and the home being built was mine. We later moved into the home after it was built and also purchased the lot next to us as an investment. Ship #2 was taken to the NASA facility in CA., which trip I made, to the wind tunnel for wind tunnel tests. The tests were very successful, however as we know now, the A/C design was flawed. If only vector thrust had been in an engineers mind at that time, the XV-4A would have been one hellava machine.I had a very CLOSE association with the XV-4A. Those memories have not faded. What has faded are the names of the many good people whom I worked with.

Video showing Hummingbird test flights can be seen at:

http://www.liveleak.com/view?i=577_1243691437

[NOTE: The following was posted on www.aero-web.org yesterday (my recollection of the crash event).]

It crashed in my neighborhood (Addison Heights Subdivision, Cobb County) on Verney Drive. If you go to Google Earth and search on Verney Drive, and then look in the SW quadrant of the intersection of Chance Road, Suholden, Shannon and Verney Drives, the Hummingbird crashed between the 1st and 3rd houses on the right side of the road (assuming you have "vitually" driven down Chance Road and turned left onto Verney at the intersection of Suholden with Chance/Shannon; I'm not sure where Chance changes to Shannon). The second house (driveway shows up as VERY white compared to the other two on Google Earth) was not there at the time. I'm willing to bet that a metal detector might hit "pay-dirt", so to speak, on the northern side of that newer driveway.

I was at home at the time (we lived on Kelly Drive, one block north). As I remember, the crash occured in the morning, and it was loud. My dad (a Lockheed production supervisor at the time) was also home, and was on scene within minutes (I remember looking out the South window of the family room and seeing his red Carmen Ghia speeding up Suholden Drive towards the crash site). The crash made the national news and there were cars up and down the street for days after it happened. A guy working on the roof of the last house on the left (Chance/Shannon address) just before Verney, fell off of the roof and broke his arm. I also remember perfectly round burn marks, a few feet in diameter, in the front yard of the 1st house on right (Verney address, previously alluded to in the first paragraph); I suppose these were from "blobs" of jet fuel. Our neighbor's daughter, Marilyn (Shannon address) was riding her bike at the time near the intersection when the plane crashed. She was unhurt, but hysterical.
[end of aero-web.org post]

Additional info not included above...
- The area where the crash occurred was about half-developed at the time. It was either pure luck, or determined effort on the part of Mr. Ingram that he crashed midway between two houses in that then-vacant lot (probably the latter; he was widely thought of as a hero, and rightly so in my opinion).

- The elevation of the crash site is a little less than 1000 feet (978 feet according to Google Earth).

Mr. Duncan, the last Hummingbird was flown by Harlan J. Quamme and he survived by ejecting. The Hummingbird program was scrapped after that. Harlan passed away October 8th 2009 and was laid to rest at Magnolia Baptist Cemetery, Whigham, Georgia. Flying was Harlan's life and we miss him!

Kenneth Paul, kpaul5(@)triad.rr.com, 28.08.2009
Just remembered the last name of "Ernie," below. It's Brooks! Any one know him? Also, a test pilot who flew 24504 (XV-4B) on its final flight is Frankie Quamme. He DID punch out when this plane got into trouble, and it crashed into Lake Lanier. I never knew him, but have made contact with he and his brother, as well as Glenn Gray.

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Mr. Paul, your info is incorrect! The last pilot of the Hummingbird was my late brother in law Harlan J. Quamme. Harlan's widow Frankie is my sister. I was living in the Atlanta area and working for Lockheed when the crash occurred. We were very happy that Harlan survived the crash as you might surmise. Harlan was a good man with a great soul. Just wanted to let you know who was flying that death trap.. Cheers, Carlton Collins

Just remembered the last name of "Ernie," below. It's Brooks! Any one know him? Also, a test pilot who flew 24504 (XV-4B) on its final flight is Frankie Quamme. He DID punch out when this plane got into trouble, and it crashed into Lake Lanier. I never knew him, but have made contact with he and his brother, as well as Glenn Gray.

I joined Lockheed Marietta in June, 1963, fresh out of the Army. I was assigned to the Hummingbird project as a flight test engineer (this is not a flying position). I had a degree in A.E. (U Ala, 1960) and had worked for Boeing for about 10 months in the aero staff (707 days!) No pilot training whatsoever, just a sliderule jockey, so don't know why Lockheed saw fit to put me in such a hands-on position with such a radical new project. Nonetheless, under the guidance of Ernie (?) and Wynne Daughters, the only other flight test engineers on the project, I was right there for the early tethered hovers, right through the crash of 24503, pictured above. Daughters was the lead FTE on 24504, the second plane, later to become the doomed XV-4B; Ernie was lead and I his #2 on 24503. The Lockheed test pilots for these craft were Glenn Gray and Bernie Dvorak. They were both in the T-33 chase plane when the Department of Army test pilot Bill Ingram crashed 24503 in the summer of 1964. Yes, it was totaled and Bill was killed, and it did hit the ground in a small construction site where new homes were being built; no one on the ground was injured.

I wrote the test plan for that day (with Ernie's sign-off, I'm sure). It called for reverse transition training for Ingram, wherein he was to take off in conventional mode, maintain at least 3500 feet AGL, and practice diverting first one engine, then both to vertical flight mode; this would result in "flying" at 30 kts or less. After feeling out the aircraft in such a strange regime, he was to return to normal flight by un-diverting first one, then both engines. On a previous similar flight, he had remarked that 'you get such a kick in the ass when those 6600 pounds of thrust kick back in' that you would never have to eject from this airplane; just push those buttons and zoom! On the fatal flight, as he was down to 30 kts or so, a duct carrying high pressure bleed air from the engines to the nose thruster blew out, and he immediately lost pitch control. Both Lockheed pilots in the chase plane barked "Bail out! Punch out!" but there was no reply. He instead flipped both engines back to conventional mode, the nose fell through, and he experienced a high speed stall just as he pancaked into the ground. He was at 3500 ft MSL, but the area was about 1500' so he just didn't have enough air under him to blast out of the problem.

My cousin William Ingram was the pilot of the original Hummingbird. He did indeed give his life to keep the aircraft from hitting in a residential area. This is according to my aunt, his mother. He also flew P-38's out of England during WWII. He loved flying more than life.

My father retired from NAS ATL (Chief Petty Officer),in 1962. He then went to work for Lockheed as an inspector on the afternoon shift at the time of the crash. He worked with the XV-4 HUMMINGBIRD project until the program was canceled after the crash. News of the crash was relayed to my father via a phone call from one of his work mates almost instantly! It was late morning to around noon as I recall. The a/c crashed somewhere north east of McCollum Airport here in Marietta. I was 16 at the time. My father owned an Ercoupe airplane and we drove to airport and climbed up high to view and make one quick pass near the crash site (not too close!!..FAA rules prohibit flying over a crash site!).

When my father was stationed at NAS Atlanta,I recall our next door neighbor in Marietta Ga was a test pilot for lockeed. He was flying chase on g
the hummingbird when a nozzle stuck and the aircraft began a flat spin-the test pilot held off ejecting trying to save the aircraft and lost track of altitude and rode it in to the ground fataly. I think this was the second crash for the prototypes. Thats when they scrapped the program.