Interested in aviation from a very young age, he graduated from Dowagiac High School in 1945 and attended Purdue University in West Lafayette, Indiana.

Kincheloe joined the Reserve Officers' Training Corps (ROTC), was a member of Sigma Phi Epsilon fraternity (Indiana Alpha), and graduated with a Bachelor of Science degree in aeronautical engineering in 1949.

[9] The X-2 program was halted three weeks later, after a crash resulted in the death of Mel Apt in a flight in which he became the first person to exceed Mach 3.

[13] 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.

While leading a flight of four F-86 type aircraft, Captain Kincheloe encountered sixteen enemy aircraft attempting to intercept friendly fighter-bombers, Captain Kincheloe quickly broke his flight into elements to engage the enemy, and boldly attacked although greatly outnumbered.

Captain Kincheloe's destruction of the two aircraft effectively broke up the enemy force and prevented their attack on the friendly fighter-bombers.