1980 Donald D. Archer
Donald D. Archer was the 1980 Kelly Johnson Award recipient for outstanding achievement in the field of flight test engineering on numerous Boeing aircraft.
The following is the original text from the nomination of Donald by J. Roy Combley, Secretary of the Seattle Chapter of the Society of Flight Test Engineers to John R. Somsel, the President of Society of Flight Test Engineers, on June 16th 1980:
"KELLY" JOHNSON AWARD
DONALD D. ARCHER
Mr. Archer attended the Coast Guard Academy and the University of Washington where he graduated with a B.S. Degree in aeronautical engineering. Following graduation, he served a tour of duty in the Air Force as a 1st Lt assigned to the Air Force Flight Test Center, Edwards AFB, California. At Edwards, he worked as a performance engineer on the T-37, B-57, B-66, C-133 and F-89J test programs. On most of these programs, he also served as his own instrumentation engineer, planner, data transcriber and program manager. As a result, he became thoroughly familiar with almost all aspects of flight testing.
Upon completion of his tour of duty with the Air Force, he joined the Flight Test Department of The Boeing Company in November 1957. This was in the early days of the development and FAA certification of the 707 airplane. Since that time, he has had an active part with increasing responsibilities in the development and or certification of the 707-100, 720, 7070-320, 727, 737, 747, 747SP, C8A, QSRA, YC-14, AWACS and Command Post airplanes and their derivatives. He has also been involved in numerous proposal programs such as the Supersonic Transport, etc. With the advent of digital electronics he has had increased responsibilities in seeing that these programs with digital autothrottle, auto pilots and flight management systems are a success.
In addition to his in-house activities, he has established himself throughout the flight test community as a professional in the testing field with the ability to apply good engineering techniques and practical solutions to problems at hand.
He has been instrumental in the development of FAA rules for the certification of jet airplanes with emphasis on "Rational Landing Rule", SR 422B and amendments to FAR 25. He has been active in the various regulatory groups and currently serves on the project for the AIA Transport Airworthiness Requirements Committee. He has also represented the The Boeing Company for many years on the AIA Flight Test Operations committee.
He is currently Assistant Director of Flight Test Engineering for The Boeing Commercial Airplane Company and is responsible for expanding the Flight Test Organization to certify two new model airplanes in an overlapping time period. He is a member of the originating group of the SFTE and was instrumental in making the Sixth Symposium at Rosairo Resort in the San Juan Islands a success.