20010/2011 SETP VICE PRESIDENT
DAVID NILS LARSON (AF)
NASA
Nils grew up In West Virginia and West Africa leaving home at 17 to attend the US Air Force Academy. He graduated in 1986 with a degree in Astronautical Engineering. After USAFA he attended pilot training at Williams AFB in AZ and ended up staying there as an instructor pilot in the T-37. He left Williams and headed for Beale AFB to become a U-2 pilot. After flying the U-2 for three years, he attended the USAF Test Pilot School graduating in Class 95A, The Spindoctors. Since no one knows what to do with a test pilot with a T-37/U-2 background, he tested F-15s with the 445th Flight Test Squadron at Edwards AFB. In the 445th Nils also tested the T-38C and was the Chief Test Pilot for the airworthiness testing on the Schweizer RU-38 Twin Condor. He left Edwards to become the Air Force exchange instructor at the US Naval Test Pilot School, where he served as Operations Officer and the Senior Fixed Wing Instructor Pilot teaching in the F-18, T-2C, U-6 and X-26. After that it was back to the high desert of California for him and his wife, where he became the commander of U-2 Flight Test and Depot at Plant 42 in Palmdale. Nils finished his Air Force career as the Deputy Operations Group Commander at Edwards AFB, retiring and moving down the street to work for NASA at the Dryden Flight Research Center flying the F-15B, NF-15B, F-16, F-18, ER-2, T-34, and T-38.
Nils has served as the SETP Secretary, East Coast Section Secretary/Treasurer, Vice-President and President; was a judge for the papers presented at the SETP International Symposium; served on the membership committee and is currently the Vice President of the Society. Nils is impressed with the strengthening of the sections and their symposia; and the movement to use technology like the wiki-site and on-line voting. He would like to see the Society and its Foundation expand into opportunities with education and would like to see a mentor program to get new members more involved with the Society.
My career has been truly unique and blessed, but the greatest blessings in my life have been my wife, Kirsten, and sons, Cooper and Finley.