Tommy H. ThomasonNow retired, Tommy H. Thomason doesn't remember when he didn't want to be a pilot. He received his Private Pilot License a few days before his 21st birthday and subsequently graduated from Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute with a Bachelor of Aeronautial Engineering, earning graduate degrees from the University of Southern California and the Harvard Graduate School of Business Administration. His 40-year career in the aerospace industry included assignments as a flight test engineer, manager, and executive. He has an Airline Transport Pilot certificate; been a flight instructor for airplanes, gliders, and instruments; and flown more than 3,000 hours in 80 different airplanes, helicopters, and sailplanes with one guest-pilot flight in the Goodyear blimp and another in the XV-15 Tilt Rotor Research Aircraft. Although thwarted by poor distance vision in becoming a Navy fighter pilot, he has maintained a very active interest in carrier aviation, authoring numerous articles and blog posts, five books, and seven monographs on U.S. Navy aircraft. Read More Read Less