EDWARDS AFB – Veteran test pilot, engineer, instructor and system safety manager Lawrence R. Davis has been appointed as Director of Flight Operations at NASA’s Dryden Flight Research Center.
Davis served for 21 years as an Air Force officer and four years as a flight test instructor in private industry before coming to NASA Dryden in 1996. He had served as Dryden’s flight operations chief in an acting capacity since January before receiving the official appointment in late May. He succeeds David A. Wright, who was advanced to Associate Director for Operations at NASA Dryden earlier this year.
As Director of Flight Operations, Davis is responsible for oversight of the research, science, and support pilots and other flight personnel, as well as flight operations, operations engineering, maintenance and back shop support for all Dryden aircraft.
Davis first came to NASA Dryden as a system safety engineer for a Dryden contractor. Upon transferring to civil service in 2002, he served as Dryden’s Director of Safety and Mission Assurance until being assigned to his current post. In his prior role, Davis was responsible for flight, software, and quality assurance for all flight missions; range safety for unpiloted aircraft missions; and occupational safety, industrial hygiene and environmental compliance for Dryden.
During his more than two decades in the Air Force, Davis served in a variety of increasingly responsible flying, teaching and management roles, ranging from piloting RF-4C aircraft in Europe to flight testing all models of the F-16 as chief of the F-16 Combined Test Force Avionics Branch. After a tour in Korea with the Army’s Second Infantry Division, he returned to Edwards as operations officer for Test Operations, conducting applied research in digital flight systems as project manager and chief test pilot of the Advanced Fighter Technology Integration F-16, F-16 digital weapons systems development, and Global Positioning System (GPS) flight tests.
After retiring from the Air Force with the rank of lieutenant colonel in 1992, Davis spent four years as Director of System Test and a flight instructor at the National Test Pilot School in Mojave until coming to Dryden.
Davis holds undergraduate and graduate degrees in electrical engineering from the University of Oklahoma and is a distinguished graduate of the U.S. Air Force Test Pilot School at Edwards Air Force Base. He taught mathematics at the Air Force Academy, and has also taught at the Air Force Test Pilot School and served as an adjunct professor at Chapman and Fresno State Universities.
PHOTO EDITORS: A publication-quality photo to support this release is available electronically at: https://www.nasa.gov/centers/dryden/news/newsphotos/index.html
For more information about NASA Dryden Flight Research Center and its research projects, visit: https://www.nasa.gov/centers/dryden
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Dryden Flight Research Center
P.O. Box 273
Edwards, California 93523
Phone 661/276-3449
FAX 661/276-3566
Alan Brown
NASA Dryden Flight Research Center
661-276-2665
alan.brown@nasa.gov