2010 John Minor

2010 SFTE Clarence L. "Kelly" Johnson Award Nomination
for
John L. Minor

John's international distinction as an experienced flight tester and flight test leader, his tireless efforts promoting flight test training and education, and his highly dedicated service to the Society of Flight Test Engineers on the local, national, and international level clearly make him extremely deserving of the prestigious SFTE Clarence L. "Kelly" Johnson Award. His SFTE contributions are provided below:

Service To The Society Of Flight Test Engineers

John is currently serving as an "unofficial special advisor" to the President of the Society of Flight Test Engineers, primarily for education and training related issues. He is a SFTE Fellow and has been active at the local and international level since 1984. During the past 9 years, John's dedication and tireless efforts towards advancing and promoting the SFTE throughout the test and evaluation community have been especially noteworthy in 4 areas: Information Exchange, Flight Test Education & Training, Organization Expansion & Outreach, and Flight Test Awards.

John's efforts to bring the society membership closer together and improve the transfer of information and flight test lessons learned resulted in an upgrade of the SFTE website including a special "Members Only" section. This new website is still up and running and serves to keep the Society more closely connected than at any previous time in history. Getting flight test information out to members has always been a prime motivation for SFTE International Symposiums. John's leadership and personal sacrifice were driving forces behind one of the most successful SFTE symposiums at Reno 2006, hosted by the Antelope Valley and Los Angeles chapters.

Under John's leadership, the Society began offering expanded short courses in order to improve the quality and content of the professional development for flight test engineers. In 2006 his efforts netted SFTE an additional $17,000 of funds used for scholarships, funding 2 design, build, fly competitions, and other efforts to promote SFTE and our profession of flight testing. Overall, the Hypersonic Aerodynamics for Flight Test Engineers Course that John established while SFTE President, has netted the Society approximately $100,000 that has been used to support a wide variety of worthy causes.

As the USAF Test Pilot School Technical Director and as President and Past President of the SFTE, John has represented both organizations at meetings and symposiums around the world promoting flight test education and training. John has been a proponent of flight test engineer certification and was instrumental in arranging a key panel discussion of this topic by senior flight test engineers from an international audience at the 2006 symposium.

John firmly believes in the benefits of teamwork and has launched initiatives with other test related organizations. For example, SFTE teamed with SETP at the North American Aerospace Testing Expo. Under John's tenure as SFTE President, the University of Michigan and the University of Kansas student chapters were formed.

Not satisfied with just increasing information exchange, improving flight test training, broadening SFTE relationships, and growing the organization, John also was instrumental in gaining approval for a new Flight Test Team award. The James S McDonnell Flight Test Team award was presented for the first time at the 2006 International Symposium.

John has served in almost every position that SFTE offers. Before his 2004-2006 presidential term, John was on the International Board of Directors and also served as the International Secretary from 2000-2002. In the spring of 2000, the current newsletter editors of the Society's Monthly Newsletter, The Flight Test News, were unable to continue serving in this position due to health problems. John volunteered to provide dual service and become the newsletter editor in addition to his secretarial and other duties as a member of the 2000-2002 Board of Directors. In this capacity John worked with the SFTE Webmaster to provide the first- ever online postings of the newsletter.

Normally the monthly duties of either the International Board Secretary or the Newsletter Editor are considered to be a full time volunteer service position for any member. However, John also tirelessly devoted himself and his time to contribute additional value to the society in several other ways. In one of his major initiatives, John spearheaded a partnering agreement with the USAF Test Pilot School to further develop and expand the SFTE Reference Handbook. Under John's influence the USAF TPS also agreed to teach two short courses per year covering the new handbook chapters at either the annual symposium or at the spring workshop. John even got things rolling by volunteering to write the first two TPS-authored chapters, the Electromagnetic Spectrum chapter & the Electro-Optics chapters, and taught short courses on these chapters at the 2002 Annual Symposium in Baltimore, Md.

Another significant contribution John made was Chairing the 2002 SFTE 2nd Annual Spring Workshop. John initially suggested the "System of Systems" Test and Evaluation for Space, Unmanned, and Manned Platforms workshop theme that was unanimously adopted by the SFTE Board of Directors. Then when there were no volunteers to run the spring workshop, John stepped in and volunteered to serve as the workshop chairman, even though his SFTE workload was already extremely high. In his capacity as workshop chairman, John developed the call for papers and the workshop announcements, solicited several invited papers, selected and invited the keynote speaker, selected, invited, and coordinated all speakers and session chairs, arranged for backup presentations in the event of no shows, arranged for all the audio visual equipment used at the workshop at no cost to SFTE, and compiled the Master Proceedings CD including workshop photos. As a result, the 2nd Annual SFTE Spring Workshop was a huge success with an outstanding keynote address by the 2001 Kelly Johnson Award winner and 17 excellent "System of Systems" presentations delivered with diverse topics ranging from the Space Base Infrared Systems to Unmanned Vehicles & Systems such as X-47 and X-45, to communications systems such as the LINK-16 and other Data Links, to Systems of Systems technology demonstrators such as the Navy's P-3 Hairy Buffalo network centric warfare demonstrator.

John also co-authored several technical papers and short courses and presented them at SFTE Annual Symposia. In 2001 John co-authored/presented two papers at the annual symposium in Seattle, Washington: "Vista- A 21st Century UA V Test-Bed" and "Teaching Flight Test in the21st Century". John also authored a technical paper for the 2002 Symposium on F#ght Test Techniques for Electro-Op#ca/ Sensor Systems which was presented in Baltimore, Md., along with a separate short course on Electro-Optical System Flight Testing.

In 2002 John was the catalyst for another important SFTE initiative involving starting a new chapter at Eglin AFB, a major USAF weapons test and evaluation center which became the Emerald Coast Chapter.