Maj. Gen. Fred Ascani, an Air Force test pilot, a record-setting air racer and the overseer of a highly publicized supersonic aircraft project of the 1960s, died March 28 at his home in Alexandria, Va. He was 92.

The cause was lung cancer, his son William said.

Ascani embarked on his military career during World War II, when he flew 52 bomber missions over Europe. He flew some 50 types of Air Force research planes after the war, including the X-1 rocket plane, the craft that Capt. Chuck Yeager flew in October 1947 when he became the first pilot to break the sound barrier.

On Aug. 17, 1951, Ascani — then a colonel — set a world closed-course speed record at the National Air Races in Detroit, flying an F-86-E Sabre jet over a 100-kilometer course at 635.686 miles an hour.

In July 1961, he was named project director for the B-70 Valkyrie, a huge six-engine plane that was originally envisioned as the successor to the B-52 bomber.