Flight Research Pilots Photo Gallery Contact Sheet

Over the past five and a half decades (as of 2001), a number of research pilots have conducted missions at what is today called the NASA Dryden Flight Research Center. Being a research pilot requires the knowledge of an aeronautical engineer and the skill and training of a test pilot. Dryden research pilots have several decades of experience flying everything from light aircraft to high-speed jets and rocket-powered airplanes. Despite the risks that go with the job, only four Dryden pilots have been killed in aircraft accidents, although Air Force pilots have been killed on joint projects, such as Ray Popson in the X-5 and Michael Adams in the X-15. But among National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics (NACA) and NASA pilots, Howard Lilly was killed in the 1948 crash of a D-558-1. Joe Walker died in 1966 when his F-104 collided with the XB-70 during a photographic-formation (rather than a research) flight. Richard Gray was killed in a T-37 spin accident in 1982, while Dick Swann was in an off-duty glider accident in 1981.