Boeing Commercial Airplanes (BCA) flight operations and validation vice president Ken Higgins has retired after more than 40 years with the company.
Higgins has been responsible for the test organisations with BCA since 1996, including a workforce of around 150 pilots and some 1,500 engineers and technicians. Since 1987 Higgins also served as director of flight testing, and has overseen all major new certification efforts from the 747-400 onwards. Higgins was on the first flight of the -400, as well as the 777, 737-400/500 and first Next Generation 737-700.
The company, which is gearing up for one of the most intensive flight test periods in its recent history with the forthcoming 777F, 747-8, 787 family and 747LCF efforts, is yet to name a sucessor.
Also, Walt Gillette, vice president of the 787 and technical leader of the new twinjet programme, has retired after 39 years with the company. Gillette, who was chief project engineer on the 777 and who led the attempts to launch the Sonic Cruiser before it morphed into the 7E7, was a highly respected figure at Boeing. He will be succeeded by Scott Strode who was vice president of aircraft production on the 787, and now becomes vice president of aircraft development and production.
Gillette’s retirement comes slightly earlier than expected, as he will reach not Boeing's mandatory retirement age until next January. Gillette worked on the Apollo space programme before joining Boeing in 1966 as a research engineer to eventually work on all major commercial models from the 707 and 727 onwards
Blog:
Staring out from his office window overlooking Boeing Field, Ken Field, Boeing's top test pilot, admits it is tough to be leaving after 40 years, particularly with the 787, 747LCF, 777F and 747-8 coming up. But then he will be able to devote more time to flying the homebuilt Glasair III co-owned with Brian Wygle, flight test engineer on the maiden flight of the 747.
Source: Flight International
