EG-0109-01
For over six decades NACA and NASA pilots have conducted flight research missions at what is now known as NASA Armstrong Flight Research Center. Being a research pilot requires the knowledge of an aeronautical engineer and the skill and training of a test pilot. Armstrong 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 five Dryden pilots were 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. Among National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics (NACA) and NASA pilots, Howard Lilly was killed in the 1948 crash of a D-558-I; 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; Dick Swann was in an off-duty glider accident in 1981; and Ed Lewis was killed in a Civil Air Patrol crash in 2007.