Hypersonics Expert, NASA (retired)
B.S. ASE 1969, The University of Texas at Austin
United States Air Force Test Pilot School, Edwards Air Force Base
M.S. Aeronautics, 1976, California Institute of Technology
Defense Language Institute (German and Russian), Monterey California
John Hicks, a long-time Texan from Abilene, attended The University of Texas at Austin from 1965 -1969 where he earned his B.S. degree in aerospace engineering in June 1969, before heading to Edwards Air Force Base (AFB) in the Mojave Desert of California. There he began his work as a performance flight test engineer at the Air Force Flight Test Center (AFFTC) for the first half of his 33-year career before moving to work for NASA Dryden Flight Research Center in the latter half of his total time at Edwards.
Additional education for Hicks included graduating from the USAF Test Pilot School at Edwards, an M.S. in aeronautics from the California Institute of Technology (GALCIT CalTech) in 1976 and finally graduating from the Defense Language Institute in Monterey, California in German and Russian as part of his technical work.
In his 33 years at Edwards AFB, Hicks worked on twelve major military and flight research projects including the C-5A, FB-111A, YF-16, ALCM cruise missile, X-29 forward-swept wing research aircraft, X-30 National Aerospace Plane, and a joint NASA-Russian (CIAM) scramjet flight project in Russia and Kazakhstan. He was selected for the German Scientist / Engineering Exchange Program in 1979 to work with the German’s DFVLR in Munich for two years, flight-testing the Tornado aircraft. Hicks created the X-43A project and configuration concept in 1995 which set a world’s speed record for the airbreathing engines with its scramjet propulsion system at Mach 9.8. Other major programs he managed included the General Atomics Predator B UAV and the AeroVironment Helios solar-electric aircraft, which set a world record 97,000 ft. for propeller-driven aircraft off the coast of Hawaii’s Kauai Island.
As an associate fellow of the AIAA and a NASA international hypersonics expert and the AFFTC flight test engineering, Hicks wrote and presented over 50 technical reports and papers at national and international conferences. In the hypersonic technology area, he worked and consulted with companies and government laboratories from numerous countries such as Germany, France, Russia, Japan and Australia, often presenting lectures and participating in hypersonics workshops worldwide. Hicks’ other honors include being selected as a Golden Eagle of the Air Force Flight Test Historical Society Hall of Fame for his work on the YF-16 program, which included participating in the YF-16 / YF-17 Source Evaluation Board selection of the F-16 aircraft for the Air Force.
Hicks retired from NASA in 2002 after successfully flying the Helios solar-electric aircraft to its world altitude record in August 2001. Since then, he has spent his retirement as a successful watercolor artist and traveled the world with his wife, Sandy, of 53 years.
