The Brown Shoes Project

Lou Ives May 27, 2012 email to Jim Glover:
On Sun 5/27/12, 4:06 PM, Avmidn@adl.com sent:

Jim:

Trying to organize The Brown Shoes (and Flying Midshipmen) notes, I scanned a letter from Luther Duncan, where he said: "I can verify Jim Glover's account of Stu Madison's death."

I don't have anything on this in the histories.

Will you send the story, including any other info on Stu that you may have. Stu and I were in the same F4U ATU flight at JAX. I recall we had an F4U x-country RON to Atlanta. We browsed about and delighted a couple of pick-ups at an ATL bistro that night. We were safe. His [gal] had a leg in a cast. More later as I get The Brown Shoes project organized to transfer it to a permanent home. 

Jim Glover July 22, 2012 email reply to Lou Ives:
On Sun 7/22/12, 8:12 PM, jpgjcg@knology.net sent:

Lou:

Stu was flying as an experimental test pilot at Vought, flying their VTO military transport. This was a number of years ago, during the Viet Nam thing. Stu and two Vought flight test engineers were practicing a demo flight for the services, where they were to make a speed run into a clear spot on the shore of Lake Hensley. They were then to hover, pick up a "downed pilot,” and speed away. This demo was intended to sell the design. The aircraft had a tail mounted propeller mounted on a vertical shaft for low speed pitch control. The control linkage to that "pitch prop" probably failed. The aircraft was seen to pitch nose downward, rotating about the wing almost. Stu ejected horizontally into a tree trunk, the two others were still in the aircraft when it hit.

All died.

Stu was the No. 2 pilot at Vought, well liked by all, in the midst of restoring an XK-120 Jag. He and Jackie had patched up their marriage and all was smooth sailing up to the part failure event.