Official AF Workers at Area 51

I decided to do a quick search of the USAF biography web site for people who were listed as working at "Detachment 3 of the Air Force Flight Test Centre". All of the people listed below worked at Area 51, and thats official! The points in italics are my own thoughts on the research.

LIEUTENANT GENERAL (DR.) GEORGE PEACH TAYLOR JR
April 1981 - August 1983

General Taylor’s second placement within the air force was apparently as Chief of Aerospace Medicine at Groom Lake, after serving as Squadron Flight Surgeon, 67th Tactical Fighter Squadron, Kadena AB, Japan.

General Taylor went on to have a decorated career and is currently the Surgeon General of the Air Force at the USAF Headquarters in Washington.

I think its safe to assume that although George Taylor can fly he wasnt involved in any classified flights

MAJOR GENERAL TED F. BOWLDS
January 1981 - December 1984

After General Bowld graduated from a Flight Test Engineers Course at Edwards AFB he was posted at Groom Lake as F-117 Test Program Manager. This matches Pete Merlin’s history of Area 51 which states that the first SENIOR TREND prototype was shipped to the base in January 1981.

General Bowlds went on to become the chief of the B-2 Avionics Branch at Wright-Patterson AFB in Ohio in July 1985 and is currently the commander of the Air Force Research Laboratory also at Wright-Patterson AFB.

I'd make an educated guess that Bowlds is either an expert on classified projects, aerodynamics (since the F-117 and B-2 are both complex cases) or stealth technology. He has probably been head of more still classified projects

BRIGADIER GENERAL CHARLES P. "PETE" WINTERS
July 1979 – July 1983

General Winters became the vice-commander of Area 51 in July 1979 and became the overall commander of the base in May 1981.

Pete Winters had previously worked on the F-111, F-15 and interestingly unmanned vehicles while he was at Edwards AFB between July 1970 and August 1975. He retired in July 1988.

Its quite possible that General Winters worked on early classified UAVs

MR. PHILIP L. SOUCY
1981-1986

Mr. Soucy acted as the Joint Test Force Director at Groom Lake. Mr. Soucy became the Chief Flight Test Engineer of the SR-71 program in 1986 and in 1988 he became the division chief of the “Red Team” of the Directorate of Electronic and Special Programs, Air Force Acquisitions. In 1993 Mr. Soucy took the job of Co-President of the weapons technology company, Modern Technology Solutions, Inc.

Mr. Soucy specializes in Low observable technology, electronic countermeasures, unmanned aerial vehicles, counter-stealth, air defense threat systems, air vehicle survivability, aircraft/UAV flight test, modeling and simulation and concept of operations development.

Philip Soucy most probably worked on the stealth characteristics of F-117 and Tacit Blue, although he could also have worked on a classified UAV in conjunction with Pete Winters. I also think the "Red Team" of the AF aquisitions office sounds interesing; a possible link with the Red Hat russian jets?

While all the 4 above were stationed at Groom Lake SENIOR TREND, TACIT BLUE, the F-117a and HALSOL all made their first flights and Project HAVE GLASS took place.

MAJOR GENERAL ROY D. BRIDGES JR
November 1979 - July 1980

General Bridges became the Director of Plans at Groom Lake in late 1979. Before working at Area 51 General Bridges worked as a test pilot at Edwards AFB, F-15 and A-10 program element monitor in Washington, Special Assistant to the Deputy Chief of Staff at the AF Research, Development and Acquisition department at the Pentagon.

General Bridges left Area 51 for space! In July 1980 he transferred to the Johnson Space Centre and flew into space on the shuttle on the 29th of that month. Among other posts he was the commander of the AFFTC between August 1991 and June 1993 and is currently the director of requirements at Wright-Patterson AFB.

Roy Bridges probably worked on some very classified craft judging on how fast he was promoted to astronaut. Could there be a possible link with space technology being tested at Groom?

Thoughts?

After Pete Winters retired from the Air Force, he became the first president of JT3 LLC, a joint venture of defense contractors EG&G and Raytheon Technical Services Company. The company name stands for Joint Range Testing, Training and Tactics. JT3 works on planning, preparing and executing testing and training programs, and on refining the tactics used by the military fighters.

The company is tasked with support of the Defense Department's Joint Range Technical Services (J-TECH) contract on four ranges in California, Nevada and Utah. The contract is part of the DOD's efforts to streamline the management of flight testing and training on western air bases. The ranges include the Air Force Flight Test Center (AFFTC) and the Navy's China Lake Electronic Combat Range in California, the Nevada Test and Training Range and the Utah Test and Training Range.

JT3 provides engineering and technical support for air operations related to aircraft development and testing including radar, computers, telemetry support and communications.

Winters retired a few years ago.

In the early 1970s, Winters was involved in fighter testing at Edwards. On 11 September 1972, he and flight test engineer Sgt. Patrick S. Sharp were forced to eject from their F-111A during a spin test. This didn't hurt either of their careers. Winters eventually became commander of Det. 3, AFFTC and Sharp eventually became the site manager at Det 3. After leaving government service Sharp continued to support classified programs with Modern Technology Solutions, Inc., Las Vegas, Nevada.

He received the 2004 Combat Survivability Award for Lifetime Achievement from the National Defense Industrial Association in recognition of exceptional contributions to aircraft combat survivability throughout a distinguished career in government and industry. During a lifetime of service to the U.S. Air Force in senior executive positions, Sharp played a key leadership role in developing and testing low observable aircraft, unmanned aerial vehicles and advanced weapons. During assignments to the Air Force Flight Test Center and later as technical director to the Director of Special Programs, Assistant Secretary of the Air Force (Acquisition), he provided technical guidance and acquisition oversight for the Air Force, thereby ensuring the successful fielding of systems such as the F-117A, B-1B, AGM-129 Advanced Cruise Missile (ACM), B-2 Advanced Strategic Penetrating Aircraft (ASPA), F-22A, Joint Air-to-Surface Standoff Missile (JASSM), and numerous other classified programs. He is recognized as the nations’ leading expert in advanced air-vehicle signature-measurement technology and associated test techniques and in the synergy available through the proper combination of signature-reduction technologies and advanced electronic warfare techniques. Sharp continued to serve the Defense Department and the defense industry as an influential member on a number of independent advisory boards and review groups. He has also served as a mentor and advisor to many people within the aircraft survivability community.

Interesting.

Patrick S. Sharp went on to work at the same company as Philip Soucy. Sharp seems to have worked on pretty much every classified/stealth program since the Nighthawk, and Im sure there is a long list of ones we dont know about yet.

Ok heres information on two others:

COLONEL JOSEPH A. LANNI
July 2001 – December 2002

Colonel Lanni was the Vice Commander at Groom Lake between the above dates after a history of flight testing. Between 1989 and 1992 he worked as an experimental test pilot at Elgin AFB, then he was posted in the 6513th and 413th Test Squadrons at Edwards AFB and in 1995 he became the Commander of a classified flight test squadron, where he stayed for two years. He also did a stint at the Pentagon and then moved to Groom. One of his achievements is the first flight of two classified prototypes.

Colonel Lanni went on to be the director of the F-22 combined test force at Edwards and for the past two years he has been the Commander of the 412th Test Wing, also at Edwards. Lanni’s AF biography is of course well known to classified aircraft buffs as the only source of information on the YF-24, presumably a prototype aircraft listed on his Aircraft Flown list.

Colonel Lanni is a very accomplished test pilot and there is no doubt in my mind that he has flown more classified aircraft than any other person listed here. He has a history with fighter planes making it more likely that the prototypes associated with him are fighters.

COLONEL KENNETH E. TODOROV
Sept 1989 – August 1994, July 2001 – June 2004

Colonel Todorov is the latest person identified in his biography as working at Groom Lake and because of this little is known of what work went on while he was there. His first period at Groom was as Chief of Wing standardisation and evaluation department and his second was as squadron operations officer and then squadron commander. During his first period at Area 51 the AGM-137 Tri-Service Standoff Attack Missile went through testing. During his second posting it is known that the F-22 went through airborne RCS evaluation at the base and two new fuel tanks were constructed. Previous to working at Area 51 he was as Aircraft Commander at Shaw AFB.

Colonel Todorov is currently the Vice Commander of the 347th Rescue Wing at Moody AFB. He appears to be a very proficient helicopter pilot, in fact of the 10 aircraft listed in his biography only one is fixed wing and one happen to be the Pave Hawk helicopter, the type used by the security forces at Groom Lake.

Due to his large experience in the field it is quite possible that Colonel Todorov worked on a classified helicopter project during at least one of his periods at the worlds most secret.

Based on Col. Todrorov's biography, I would say it is unlikely that he was involved in testing classified helicopters. He appears to have been the operations officer and later commander of the G.H.O.S.T. Squadron, the support/rescue/security helicopter unit at Groom Lake.

I guess that makes more sense, especially with the Pave Hawk link.

On Charles Winters bio it says "During this period he was active in many programs, including the F-111, AX, remotely piloted vehicles and the F-15."

Does the AX possibly refer to this AX-17 and/or this one?

Pete Winters would have been involved with the A-X competition of the early 1970s. The two A-X competitors to reach the final stage were the Northrop A-9 and Fairchild Republic A-10.