In My Own Words

SEA POWER

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In My Own Words

By Marine Lt. Col. Arthur Tomassetti
Chief Test Pilot, Air Test & Evaluation Squadron 23
Sea Power
July 2005

From the time I was a little kid I wanted to be a test pilot or an astronaut. I grew up in South Florida in the age when all the moonwalks were happening, so it was a good answer when people asked you, “What do you want to be when you grow up?”

During my second year at Northwestern University on a Naval Reserve Officers Training Corps scholarship, I decided the Marine Corps was the way to go. My eyes were set on U.S. Naval Test Pilot School pretty much from the get-go, through two tours as an AV-8B Harrier II pilot and 39 combat missions during Operation Desert Storm.

From the time I was first eligible, I kept applying and I guess they just got tired of seeing my application. I was accepted on my seventh try, and started the school in 1997. I've been a test pilot ever since (except for one year at Command & Staff College), which is fairly unique for a Marine.

Leading as chief test pilot is different than leading a fleet squadron because you have more of a spectrum of people. Every one of the 40 test pilots and flight officers here is handpicked from a group of very qualified individuals. They are the best of the best. I don't have to worry so much about how they will handle themselves in the airplane. Everyone wants to be the guy doing the most on-the-edge testing. I try to spread that out as best I can among the guys and at the same time keep everyone trained and all their skills pumped.

One of the toughest aspects is looking into the crystal ball and making sure we have the right mix of people at the right time, with a timeline that may be continuously changing. Here, we focus on the test pilot and engineer as a team, a single entity. That's something you don't find in a normal fleet squadron.

There's enormous pressure in some of these programs. Some are time-critical, such as the fleet wanting clearance for weapons in current operations. The last two F-14 squadrons going on deployment asked for the capability to drop 500-pound Joint Direct-Attack Munitions. Having last year transferred our last [flight-test] F-14s and crews, we quickly took some of our older guys and two newer guys with F-14 backgrounds, sent them back through requalification, put together a test team and made it work. That was enormously satisfying.

My first flight in the X-35 Joint Strike Fighter was on the Marine Corps' birthday. My wife and daughter were there to watch me take off, and were the first people I saw when I landed the airplane. That was special. My wife's father was a Marine Corps pilot, so she's been “in the Marines” twice as long as I have. She's been a champ.

I think the time for becoming an astronaut has passed for me. That time for me was right at the beginning of the Joint Strike Fighter competition. Looking back on that now, I don't think I would have traded it away for the job with NASA.

I always wanted to make a difference, whether in current operations or here making sure the fleet has the weapons it needs. It's important that we do things safely so we don't lose aircrew or airplanes. If I come out of the job with nothing else after three years, that would be enough. I don't know what's going to happen when I retire and sit at home and just fix the sink.