Fred J. Drinkwater 1926-2012
During his career at Ames Fred worked on a wide variety of flight programs. He developed flying techniques for the VTOL jet X-14, and worked with fellow Navy pilot Neil Armstrong developing techniques for landing the LEM on the moon. He was in the vanguard of developing landing systems for extreme low L/D flight, precursor to the space shuttle landing scheme; he worked on many V/STOL aircraft and rotorcraft, including the Tiltrotor, precursor to the Marine V-22 Osprey. Other aeronautics projects included numerous flight simulations, aviation safety, accident recreation, etc. Fred also flew NASA airborne sciences projects in high-altitude astronomy, advanced radars, sea ice dynamics, arctic mammal surveys, hurricane formation, and many others.
On 12 August 1959, Fred Drinkwater became the first NASA test pilot to complete the full conversion of a tiltrotor to airplane mode flying the Bell XV-3. Fred Drinkwater tested many aircraft, including the XV-3 (1957), the JF-104A Starfighter, the Skylancer F-5, the VZ-9AV Avrocar and the Ryan VZ-3RY