John Cook was trained in England and emigrated to the US to work on aircraft when the UK industry imploded in the 60’s. After stints at several companies including Helio, he went to work for Northrop on the 747 (Northrop designed and built the center and aft fuselage) and after work in the evenings and on weekends, several co-workers went down to Torrance and helped production design this plane in return for stock in the company. They built a prototype and a static test article, intending to obtain an FAA Type Certificate. The aircraft first flew in May 1969 and performed well; it passed static tests with very minor fixes. During a spin test, the FAA pilot kept the power on during the first turn of the spin – we had always closed the throttle as it stalled – and the plane entered an unrecoverable spin mode. John and the FAA pilot parachuted to safety, but the plane N21CA fell into the LA Harbor.
They built a second prototype, N72CA first flying in November 1971, and John Cook and John Parker test flew it to determine a safe aft CG limit. During one of these tests in January 1972 they got into the same situation and bailed out. JP was fine but Cook’s parachute was hit by the spinning plane and he was killed.
The company continued for a while and a third prototype was first flown in 1972 (N123CA) and an attempt was made to market the project as a homebuilt. This was not successful, the company folded and the plane was sold.
All Aero 