William H. McAvoy

William H. "Bill" McAvoy was a civilian test pilot in the 1920s and 1930s for the National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics (NACA) at the Langley Memorial Aeronautical Laboratory, Langley Field, Virginia, and in 1940 helped start the flight operations division at the Ames Research Center, California.

He had served in the U.S. Army from 1917 to 1921.

Employed by NACA by 1929, McAvoy was one of several pilots, including Melvin N. Gough, Edmund T. "Eddie" Allen, and Thomas Carroll that NACA trained "in stability and control research techniques, including the ability to reach and hold equilibrium flight conditions with accuracy. As with all good research test pilots, the NACA group worked closely with flight test engineers and in fact took part in discussing NACA’s flying qualities work with outsiders. All of this helped lay the groundwork for the comprehensive flying qualities research that followed."

McAvoy was involved in the testing of many different aircraft types at the Langley Field facilities near Hampton, Virginia, including the third of the Grumman XF3F-1 prototypes, BuNo 9727 (3rd), rebuilt from the wreckage of the second prototype which crashed at Naval Air Station Anacostia, Washington, D.C., on 17 May 1935.

On 15 October 1929, McAvoy was testing the Martin XT5M-1 divebomber, BuNo A-8051, when, during terminal dive test at 350 IAS at 8,000 feet, the lower starboard wing caved in, ripping an extensive hole. McAvoy staggered the aircraft back to the Martin field north of Baltimore, Maryland, landing at 110 mph with full-left stick input and thereby saving the machine. The aircraft would go into production as the BM-1.

In July 1931, McAvoy and Melvin Gough conducted a series of tests on America's first autogyro, the Pitcairn PCA-2, NACA 44. The test series was the first to yield quantitative data on the handling qualities of the forerunner of the helicopter.

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