1976 Harold Cheney

This year's recipient the "Kelly" Johnson Award for outstanding achievement in Flight Test Engineering is Mr. Harold Cheney. Harold is a pioneer flight test engineer with a career which spans four decades. He joined Vultee Aircraft Company in 1936 following graduation from University of Cincinnati in Aeronautical Engineering. As a flight test engineer, he recorded data on a knee pad in a Vultee V·1A transport and subsequently developed the first photo recorder for the Vultee P·48 fighter. He served as chief flight test engineer at Vultee Aircraft Company and Convair from 1938 to 1956, and had several flight test management assignments at General Dynamics from 1956 to 1970. Since joining Douglas Aircraft Company in 1970, Harold has been active in the Dc-10. the DC-9 and the YC-15 Test programs. Test programs with which he has been associated include the BT·13 Trainer, A-35 Dive Bomber, P-81 (first U.S. turboprop), F-102 and F-106 Fighter, Terrier Missile, MX-774 Ballistic Missile (Atlas Prototype), Pogo Stick, Convair 880 and 990 Transports, Little Joe II Booster, and F-1118. Throughout his career, Harold has been active in technical societies, a past director of the Aerospace Division of ISA; an active member of AIAA for numerous years; a charter member in the Los Anteles Chapter of the Society of Flight Test Engineers, serving as National Director for the SFTE in 1973.

Mr. Harold Cheney was presented the 1976 "Kelly" Johnson Award for outstanding achievement in flight test engineering. The award ceremony was conducted at the SFTE Symposium during the dinner banquet on the evening of August Sixth, on beautiful Oreas Island, Washington. Harold Cheney is a charter member of the Long Beach Chapter and truley a pioneer flight test engineer. His colorful professional career started in 1936 at Vultee Aircraft Co. following graduation from the University. of Cincinnati in Aeronautical Engineering. During college he was a co-op engineer at Aeronca on the Improved C-3. Harold's present position is at Douglas Aircraft Co., on the YC 15 project. His first flight test assignment was recording data on a knee pad in a Vultee VIA transport. He developed the first photo recorder for the Vultee P-48 fighter in 1939. Today Harold Cheney evaluates YC-15 aircraft performance in "realtime" viewing CRT displays in Douglas' Flight Development Center. He served as chief flight test engineer at Vultee Aircraft Co. and Convair from 1938 to 1956, a variety of flight test management assignments for General Dynamics from 1956 to 1970, and Flight Test Project Engineer at Douglas from 1970 to present. The repertoire of test programs in Harold's professional career is vast; to mention a few were the BT-13 Trainer, A-35 Dive Bomber, P-81 (first U.S. turboprop), F-102, Terrier Missile, MX-774 Ballistic Missile (Atlas prototype), Pogo Stick, Convair 880 transport, Little Joe II Booster, and F-111B. He was deputy program manager on the Little Joe II Booster for the development of the Apollo Command Module. Throughout his career, Harold has been active in technical societies. He is past director of Aerospace Division of ISA, AIAA member, and presented a technical paper at the 1961 annual meeting of the Society of Experimental Test Pilots. Harold has contributed to the SFTE's development and strongly believes in its main objective: the advancement of flight test engineering throughout the aircraft industry by providing technical and fraternal communication among individuals in test operations, instrumentation, test data processing. and systems analysis.