Bradford A. Neal
Senior Technical Advisor for Airworthiness and Flight Safety
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Bradford A. Neal is the senior technical advisor for Airworthiness and Flight Safety at NASA’s Armstrong Flight Research Center in Edwards, California. He was appointed to this position in October 2020. In his current position, he promotes, represents and explains the Armstrong airworthiness and flight safety review process to all potential users. He also serves as a resource to flight programs and projects to tailor and successfully execute the process.
Experience
Neal served as the deputy chief engineer from 2008 until being named the acting chief engineer in November 2011. He received the official appointment in June 2012. As chief engineer, he provided independent technical guidance and oversight to Armstrong flight projects and programs to ensure conformance with center and agency standards, policies and processes. He also served as chair of the Airworthiness and Flight Safety Review Board, for which he determined and provided the appropriate level of independent technical review for each project prior to flight.
From 1987 to 2008, Neal was an operations engineer at Dryden (now Armstrong), specializing in the integration, test and operations of flight research vehicles and experiments. Projects to which he was assigned include the X-31 Enhanced Fighter Maneuverability Demonstrator, X-43A Hypersonic Research Vehicle (Hyper-X), the Stratospheric Observatory for Infrared Astronomy (SOFIA) and the Linear Aerospike SR-71 Experiment (LASRE). He also was an engineer on projects with the F-104, F-16 Advanced Fighter Technology Integration (AFTI) and F-16XL Laminar Flow Research Aircraft and he served as mission controller for flight activities.
Education
Neal earned a Bachelor of Science in aeronautical and astronautical engineering in 1986 and a Master of Science in aeronautics and astronautics in 1996, both from Purdue University, West Lafayette, Indiana. He began his career at Dryden as a cooperative education student in 1982 and joined the full-time engineering staff following completion of his undergraduate studies.
Honors
Neal is co-author of three technical papers and a recipient of two NASA Exceptional Service Medals.