Stephen D. Ishmael
X-33 Deputy Manager
Stephen D. Ishmael was NASA’s X-33 deputy manager for Flight Test and Operation. He also served as special assistant to the director of NASA’s Dryden (now Armstrong) Flight Research Center for the X-33, and before assuming that position in 1996, he was manager of Dryden’s Reusable Launch Vehicle (RLV) programs.
From 1977 until the spring of 1995, he was a research pilot at Dryden. He was the chief project pilot on two major aeronautical research programs there, the SR-71 High Speed Research project and the F-16XL Laminar Flow Technology project.
Other Dryden flight projects he was involved in include the X-29 Forward Swept Wing/Technology Demonstrator aircraft on which he actively participated in the development and planning phases, the Advanced Fighter Technology Integration F-16 (AFTI F-16), the F-8 Digital Fly-By-Wire, and the F-14 spin research projects.
Ishmael entered the U.S. Air Force in 1971 as a pilot and flew F-106s with the Air National Guard’s 194th Fighter Interceptor Squadron at Fresno, California, and F-16s with the Air Force Reserve’s 466th Tactical Fighter Squadron at Hill Force Base, Utah.
He logged more than 6,000 hours of flying time in single-seat aircraft since becoming a pilot in 1971.
Ishmael was an undergraduate and a Regents Scholar at the University of California at San Diego, and received a Master of Science in engineering (with emphasis on computer technology) from the University of California at Los Angeles in 1974.