an early-jet demonstration team. Herbst crashed in a dry riverbed near the Del Mar Racetrack after his aircraft stalled during an encore of their routine finale in which a pair of P-80s did a loop while configured to land. Herbst had married his second wife less than 24 hours earlier. His wingman, Major Robin Olds, narrowly avoided the same fate while flying in formation. 7 July Howard Hughes was seriously injured when he mishandled a propeller-pitch control failure and crashed his Hughes XF-11 reconnaissance plane 44-70155 during its maiden flight. The aircraft struck homes in the Beverly Hills, near the Los Angeles Country Club golf course where Hughes was attempting an emergency landing. 8 July The first of two Vought XF4U-5 Corsairs, created by mating Vought F4U-4 Corsair BuNo 97296 with a Pratt & Whitney R-2800-32W radial engine and first flown on 3 July 1946, was lost during a routine test flight when pilot Bill Horan attempted a deadstick landing in Stratford, Connecticut. The airframe was destroyed, and Horan was killed. 9 July Eight USAAF crew, 16 U.S. Coast Guardsmen returning from duty in Greenland, and one civilian were killed when their B-17G-105-BO Flying Fortress 43-39136, c/n 10114, crashed into Mount Tom in Massachusetts at about 22:20 while attempting to land at Westover Field. A monument to the victims at the crash site was dedicated on 6 July 1996. 11 July The first of three Mikoyan-Gurevich I-300 prototypes (I for istrebitel, or interceptor), F-1, a twin-engine tricycle-geared jet-powered design first flown on 24 April 1946, developed an uncontrollable pitch during a high-speed run and crashed, killing pilot Alexei Grinchik. Replacement test pilot Mark Gallai had two close calls in an I-300 when the tailplane and elevator distorted, probably the same condition which killed Grinchik. 12 July The unarmed second prototype of the Mikoyan-Gurevich I-250, with a strengthened tailplane after the crash of the first prototype on 5 July 1945, continued flight testing until an engine fire forced an emergency landing and damaged it beyond repair. 26 July The crash of Stinson L-5E Sentinel 44-17844 during a routine flight out of Eglin Field in Florida killed Capt. Russell H. Rothman, originally from Chicago, when the liaison aircraft crashed 17 miles northwest of Valparaiso, Florida. Rothman, who began military service on 16 September 1941 and had flown 800 hours in C-46 Commando and C-47 Skytrain transports in the European theatre, had recently