Gathering of Eagles honors 70 years of TPS

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  • By Rebecca Amber
  • Staff writer
EDWARDS AIR FORCE BASE, Calif. --  The Flight Test Historical Foundation presented the 2014 Gathering of Eagles Oct. 18 celebrating the 70th anniversary of the United States Air Force Test Pilot School. The annual fundraiser included dinner, a silent auction and panel discussion with this year's honorees.

The money raised by the non-profit foundation is used to benefit the Air Force Test Center Museum, allowing them to restore new assets and maintain aircraft already on display. Their concurrent capital campaign aims to move the museum outside of the West Gate near Century Circle making it available to the public without gaining base access.

Flight Test Historical Foundation chairwoman Lisa Gray announced that the foundation has met its first phase goal, which qualified for a $300,000 matching grant from the Conrad N. Hilton Foundation.

According to Gray, the foundation will break ground once their environmental assessment is complete. She added that they are in the process of obtaining historic Lockheed air service hangars from Ontario Airport that will become the museum's new facility.

"Our ultimate goal is about $7 million to build something that will hold everything that's currently here plus everything that we need to bring in. the vision is that this [current museum] will become the restoration facility, so it will still be part of the museum complex, but it will be where they do the work," said Gray.

But it's not just about the museum and its assets, it's about promoting STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics) education. The foundation, along with Marie Fullerton, presented the second annual C. Gordon Fullerton Memorial Scholarship to Valerie Stahl.

"Promoting education is big part of the mission of the museum as well, leveraging all these assets to get kids excited about science and technology by having a program that celebrates technical accomplishments," said Gray. "The scholarship is for someone studying engineering and technology in the Antelope Valley and planning to pursue an aerospace, scientific career."

After dinner, guests heard from former student Capt. Michael Pacini, from Class 12B, about his Test Management Project, auto air collision avoidance system testing, during his time at the school. He was followed by former instructor Rod Cregier, on "living in infamy" as a test pilot and what he learned when he and a student were forced to bail out of their aircraft when they could not recover from a spin.

Aviation Artist Mike Machat also spoke that evening, sharing his artistic process in creating the commemorative 70th Anniversary painting that now hangs in the school. The original painting was on display for guests to view during the event.

"Another reason that we chose to celebrate the test pilot school, besides that it's the 70th anniversary is the school is unique in the world really. It really is the premiere in my opinion," said Gray. "We really feel like it's almost an adjunct to this museum. They have a lot of artifacts of their own from the pictures of all the classes and the commandants to all the things that have been given to them over the years by visiting pilots and other schools and other nations."

Each of the Eagles were called individually to join Gray and Maj. Gen. Arnold Bunch Jr., Air Force Test Center commander to receive their pin and take their place in the panel. The honorees were joined by distinguished panel member Col. (Ret.) Pamela Melroy, a former NASA astronaut and Space Shuttle commander.

The five honorees were:

Colonel (Ret.) Andre Gerner, former TPS commandant from July 2005 to July 2007. He graduated with TPS Class 91A and went on to preform developmental test in the T-1 and C-17.

Lt. Col. (Ret.) William Gray III, is the current and first Chief Test Pilot at the school and Class of 91 graduate of the school. As TPS staff, he has studied and modeled Boundary-Avoidance Tracking, a significant source of hazardous pilot/vehicle interactions as well as a platform-independent planning method for dive safety, "Time Safety Margin."

George cooper, a WWII fighter pilot, later served as an experimental test pilot for the NASA Ames Research Center. His most significant contribution to aviation was his ten-point Cooper Pilot Opinion Rating Scale, later renamed the Cooper-Harper Handling Qualities rating scale. The scale is still used by pilots today to rate their experience in an aircraft.

Lt. Col. (Ret.) David Vanhoy graduated with class 94A and currently serves as the school's Technical Director. He has over 26 years of experience in flight test including his work at the Air Force Flight Test Center as a flying qualities engineer on the X-29 high angle-of-attack program

Lt. Col. (Ret.) Gary Aldrich, Class 82A is a contract flight test instructor for the Test Management Branch of TPS. He has had the longest tenure of any staff instructor in the school's history and during that time personally instructed 1,156 TPS students which makes up 40 percent of the school's total graduates.

In his closing remarks, Brig. Gen. Michael Brewer, 412th Test Wing commander stated that this is about preparing for the future. He painted a picture of a child visiting the museum's new facility, excited about what's been done in the past. Then he encouraged everyone to visualize that same child, now grown sitting in the Test Pilot School, excited about an even more exciting future.

Flight Test Historical Foundation hosts TPS tour

The Flight Test Historical Foundation hosted a pre-Gathering of Eagles event that Friday. Visitors gathered at the Air Force Test Center Museum that morning and toured the Test Pilot School that afternoon.

"We have an 8,000 square foot exhibit area, two buildings of artifacts and almost 100 aircraft and more on the way," George Welsh, AFTC Museum curator told visitors. "Our future plans call for having most of the aircraft indoors. We are also working very closely with NASA; their goal is to preserve their aircraft - that means bringing their aircraft into the museum."

According to Welsh, once the museum has moved outside the gate, the facility will eventually grow to a 120,000-square foot exhibit area. The museum will house interactive exhibits, like re-creating Pancho's Barn to get visitors interested and excited about the displays.

"Every aircraft we have has multiple connections back to Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics; that's what we want to create an aerospace, STEM education center right here at the West Gate and I know we can do it and we're doing it with your help," said Welsh.

After the group departed from the museum, they took a flightline tour to the museum's restoration hangar and then back to the USAF Test Pilot School. Colonel Charles Webb Jr., TPS commandant presented a mission brief to the group before they toured the school.

Among the group was former TPS student, Col. (Ret.) Eugene Deatrick, who had started his TPS education with the school's first class.

"They determined since I came from Eglin AFB, I didn't need stability and control so they sent me back," said Deatrick. "A couple years later, I got returned to flight test in Wright Patterson and came out to finish a few years later."

In 1967 he returned to the school again, this time as commandant for a year.

"It's Scary," said Deatrick. "It's grown quite a lot. There's a broad stretch of experience now between what I had and what they now have. It's good to bring yourself up to date and see what they are doing. I was very pleased when I found out they had advanced enough that you can get an advanced degree being a student of the school."