Experience
Reightler was designated a Naval Aviator in August 1974 at Corpus Christi, Texas. After replacement pilot training in the P-3C airplane, he reported to Patrol Squadron 16 (VP-16) in Jacksonville, Florida, serving as both a mission commander and patrol plane commander. He made deployments to Keflavík, Iceland, and to Sigonella, Sicily. Following jet transition training, Reightler attended the U.S. Naval Test Pilot School at NAS Patuxent River, Maryland.
Upon graduation in 1978, he remained at the Naval Air Test Center where he served as test pilot and project officer for a variety of flight test programs involving the P-3, S-3, and T-39 airplanes. He later returned to the Test Pilot School, serving as a flight test instructor and safety officer flying the P-3, T-2, OV-1, T-39, and TA-7 airplanes. In June 1981 Reightler was assigned to the USS Dwight D. Eisenhower as communications officer and carrier on-board delivery pilot, making two deployments to the Mediterranean Sea.
Selected for postgraduate education, he attended the Naval Postgraduate School in Monterey, California. Redesignated an Aerospace Engineering Duty Officer (AEDO), he was sent to transition training for the F/A-18 airplane with Strike Fighter Squadron 125 (VFA-125) at NAS Lemoore, California. He then reported for duty at the Test Pilot School in March 1985, serving as the chief flight instructor until his selection for the astronaut program.
He has logged over 5,000 hours flying time in over 60 different types of aircraft.
Read more about this topic: Kenneth S. Reightler, Jr.
Famous quotes containing the word experience:
“The goal for all blind skiers is more freedom. You don’t have to see where you’re going, as long as you go. In skiing, you ski with your legs and not with your eyes. In life, you experience things with your mind and your body. And if you’re lacking one of the five senses, you adapt.”
—Lorita Bertraun, Blind American skier. As quoted in WomenSports magazine, p. 29 (January 1976)
“I shall not want Society in Heaven,
Lucretia Borgia shall be my Bride;
Her anecdotes will be more amusing
Than Pipit’s experience could provide.”
—T.S. (Thomas Stearns)
“Undermining experience, embellishing experience, rearranging and enlarging experience into a species of mythology.”
—Philip Roth (b. 1933)