at Farnborough, England. He participated in the testing of the Century Series of fighter aircraft (F-100 Super Sabre, F-101 Voodoo, F-102 Delta Dagger, F-104 Starfighter, F-105 Thunderchief, and F-106 Delta Dart). In the mid-1950s, Kincheloe joined the Bell X-2 program and on September 7, 1956, flew at more than and to a height of (some sources list 126,500), the first flight ever above , above 30 km (18.6 mi) and above 20 mi (32.2 km). For this he was nicknamed "America's . (However, this altitude is below the Kármán line, the threshold for "space" later established by the Fédération aéronautique internationale, as well as below the 50-mile-boundary used by the U.S. Air Force.) He was awarded the Mackay Trophy for 1956 for the flight. The X-2 program was halted three weeks later, after a fatal crash resulted in the death of Mel Apt in a flight in which he became the first person to exceed Mach 3. Kincheloe was later selected as one of the first three pilots in the next rocket-powered aircraft program, the X-15, and would have been part of the Man in Space Soonest project. Death and legacy In July 1958, Kincheloe was killed in the crash of an F-104A (Lockheed F-104A-10-LO s/n 56-772) at Edwards Air Force Base; he had ejected at low altitude, but given that the early F-104 used a downwards catapulted ejection seat the deployed parachute did not adequately slow his descent. He was buried with full military honors at Arlington National Cemetery. Only thirty years old, Kincheloe was survived by wife, Dorothy, their young son, Iven III, and a daughter who was born two months later, Jeannine. On September 25, 1959, Kincheloe Air Force Base in Michigan's Upper Peninsula was renamed in his honor; formerly Kinross Air Force Base, it closed in 1977. A monument stands approximately 1½ miles (2½ km) east of his hometown of Cassopolis, Michigan; an angular stone slab in height, it bears a silver model of the X-2 pointed skyward. () Kincheloe Elementary School, part of the nearby Dowagiac Union School District, is named in his honor. The television program Hogan's Heroes included a character named Staff Sergeant James Kinchloe, played by Ivan Dixon. In 1992, he was inducted into the Aerospace Walk of Honor. In 2011, he was inducted into the National Aviation Hall of Fame. The Society of Experimental Test Pilots Iven C. Kincheloe Award is