He lived in Rush County and helped his father with work on the family farm until he reached the age of 20.

[2] In his first combat mission, in November 1943, the plane he was co-piloting crash-landed on the island of Corfu after being hit by anti-aircraft fire.

He was head of the B-58 Hustler and XB-70 test programs, and was flying in the ill-fated formation flight that resulted in the loss of XB-70 A/V2 on June 8, 1966.

[5] Cotton was hired as an engineering flight test pilot for United after his military retirement.

In total, he flew more than 16,000 flight hours in 80 different military bombers, fighters, transports, and civilian aircraft.