1. Robert Leon Cardenas was a brigadier general in the United States Air Force.
22 Facts About Robert Cardenas
1. 2.
Robert Cardenas excelled in mathematics and physics in high school.
3.
When Cardenas was a teenager, building models and learning about gliders at Torrey Pines Gliderport first sparked his interest in airplanes.
4.
Robert Cardenas graduated, received his pilot wings and was commissioned a second lieutenant in the Army Air Corps in July 1941.
5.
Robert Cardenas was sent to Twentynine Palms, California, to help establish the Army Air Corps Glider School.
6.
Robert Cardenas was assigned to Wright Field, Ohio, and became a flight test officer.
7.
Robert Cardenas rose quickly in position, was promoted to operations officer and finally director of the Flight Test Unit, Experimental Engineering Laboratory at Wright Field.
Related searches
Anthony Principi 8.
Robert Cardenas's attack run was supposed to target the Manzell Air Armaments factory in Friedrichshafen, Wurttemberg, Germany.
9.
Robert Cardenas was first interned at a camp for American officers at Adelboden, and was later assigned to teach Swiss officers how to fly interned American bombers at Dubendorf Airfield near Zurich.
10.
On September 27,1944, Robert Cardenas escaped into France with the help of Swiss civilians and the French resistance.
11.
Robert Cardenas was flown to Britain and then sent back to the United States to recover from his head injury.
12.
Robert Cardenas piloted a captured Luftwaffe jet fighter, the Messerschmitt Me 262, and the Arado Ar 234 jet bomber.
13.
Robert Cardenas was assigned chief test pilot for bomber aircraft and flew all prototypes of that class for the next four years.
14.
Robert Cardenas later claimed that the YB-49 rotated backwards in stall, and that he warned Glen Edwards about it, who later died in a YB-49 crash.
15.
In 1968, Colonel Robert Cardenas was promoted to Brigadier General and assigned to command of the Air Force Special Operations Force at Eglin Air Force Base.
16.
Robert Cardenas retired from the Air Force as a Brigadier General in 1973.
17.
Robert Cardenas served on the California Council of Criminal Justice.
18.
Robert Cardenas was later a member of the Veteran Administration's Memorials and Cemetery Committee.
19.
Robert Cardenas was appointed to the committee by former VA Secretary Anthony Principi.
20.
Robert Cardenas was a trustee of the Flight Test Historical Foundation at Edwards AFB.
21.
Robert Cardenas lived in San Diego with his wife, Gladys, where he died on March 10,2022, his 102nd birthday.
22.
In 2012, Robert Cardenas was honored at the Air Command and Staff College's Gathering of Eagles at Maxwell Air Base, Montgomery, Alabama.