Experience
Williams received his commission through the Naval ROTC program at Purdue University. He completed flight training at Pensacola, Florida, Meridian, Mississippi and Kingsville, Texas, receiving his aviator wings in May 1966. After A-4 Skyhawk training, he made two Vietnam War deployments aboard the USS Enterprise with Attack Squadron 113 (VA-113). He served as a flight instructor in Attack Squadron 125 (VA-125) at Naval Air Station Lemoore, California for 2 years and transitioned to the A-7 Corsair II aircraft. He made two additional Vietnam deployments aboard the Enterprise with Carrier Air Wing 14 staff and Attack Squadron 97 (VA-97). Williams completed a total of 330 combat missions.
In 1973, Williams attended the Armed Forces Staff College. He graduated from the U.S. Naval Test Pilot School at NAS Patuxent River, Maryland, in June 1974, and was assigned to the Naval Air Test Center's Carrier Suitability Branch of Flight Test Division. From August 1976 to June 1977, following reorganization of the Naval Air Test Center, he was head of the Carrier Systems Branch, Strike Aircraft Test Directorate. He reported next for A-7 refresher training, and was assigned to Attack Squadron 94 (VA-94) when he was selected as an astronaut candidate by NASA.
He has logged more than 6,000 hours flying time, which includes 5,700 hours in jets and 745 carrier landings.
Read more about this topic: Donald E. Williams
Famous quotes containing the word experience:
“I think New Mexico was the greatest experience from the outside world that I have ever had.”
—D.H. (David Herbert)
“Quidquid luce fuit tenebris agit: but also the other way around. What we experience in dreams, so long as we experience it frequently, is in the end just as much a part of the total economy of our soul as anything we “really” experience: because of it we are richer or poorer, are sensitive to one need more or less, and are eventually guided a little by our dream-habits in broad daylight and even in the most cheerful moments occupying our waking spirit.”
—Friedrich Nietzsche (1844–1900)
“I am ashamed to see what a shallow village tale our so-called History is. How many times must we say Rome, and Paris, and Constantinople! What does Rome know of rat and lizard? What are Olympiads and Consulates to these neighboring systems of being? Nay, what food or experience or succor have they for the Esquimaux seal-hunter, or the Kanaka in his canoe, for the fisherman, the stevedore, the porter?”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)