Background
Rushworth was born in Madison, Maine on October 9, 1924.
Rushworth was born in Madison, Maine on October 9, 1924.
He graduated from Madison Memorial High School in 1942. After attending Hebron Academy from which he graduated in June 1943, and joining the United States Army Air Forces, he studied Mechanical Engineering at the University of Maine, receiving a Bachelor of Engineering degree in 1951. He also received a Bachelor of Science degree in Aeronautical Engineering from the United States. Air Force Institute of Technology in 1954.
In 1967 he graduated from the National War College in Washington District of Columbia
Early life and education Flight experience In 1944 Rushworth earned his pilot wings. During Korean War, Rushworth served as a F-80C Shooting Star pilot with the 49th Fighter-Interceptor Squadron at Dow Air Force Base. Following his graduation from the United States. Air Force Institute of Technology in 1954, Rushworth stayed at Wright-Patterson Air Force Base in Dayton, Ohio.
Among his duties was to serve at the Directorate of Flight and All-Weather Testing.
There he specialized in the development and flight testing of experimental automatic flight control systems He graduated from the Air Force Experimental Flight Test Pilot School in 1957, and was selected for the X-15 program in 1958.
He made his first flight on November 4, 1960. Over the next six years, he made 34 flights in the X-15, the most of any pilot.
This included a flight to an altitude of 285,000 feet, made on June 27, 1963.
On a later X-15 flight, he was awarded a Distinguished Flying Cross for successfully landing an North American X-15 after its nose wheel extended while flying at nearly Mach 5. He made his final X-15 flight on July 1, 1966, then returned to regular Air Force duties. These included a tour in Vietnam as an F-4 Phantom II pilot, flying 189 combat missions.
He also served as the Commander of the Air Force Flight Test Center at Edwards Air Force Base, California, and as the Commander of the Air Force Test and Evaluation Center at Kirtland Air Force Base, New Mexico.
At the time of his retirement as a Major General, he was Vice Commander, Aeronautical Systems Division, Air Force Systems Command, at Wright-Patterson Air Force Base, Ohio. Rushworth retired on June 1, 1981.
He is rated a Command Pilot Astronaut and has more than 6,500 flying hours in more than 50 different types of aircraft. Death He died of heart attack in Camarillo, California on March 17, 1993, at the age of 68.
Legion of Merit with oak leaf cluster.
Member of the Society of Experimental Test Pilots.