FIVE TO BE HONORED ON WALK EVENT PAYS TRIBUTE TO PILOTS.

Byline: Jim Skeen Staff Writer

LANCASTER - The Antelope Valley's aviation history will be celebrated Saturday with Lancaster's annual street fair and the induction ceremonies for five new members of the Aerospace Walk of Honor.

The Walk of Honor, now in its 16th year, commemorates test pilots with ties to Edwards Air Force Base who have made outstanding contributions to aerospace. Each year the city honors five test pilots.

``It's a profession where extraordinary achievement is the norm,'' said Mayor Frank Roberts. ``Our honorees have soared above the rest.''

This year's inductees are John ``Jack'' Allavie, Wallace ``Wally'' Lien, retired Air Force Maj. Gen. Wilbert ``Doug'' Pearson, Edward Schneider and Richard ``Dick'' Thomas.

``It's one of the better things the city has ever done,'' said former NASA test pilot Don Mallick, a Lancaster resident who was inducted in 2000. ``It's a very impressive, top-notch operation.''

The year's class of inductees brings the walk's total to 80 pilots. Retired test pilot Fitz Fulton, inducted with the walk's second class in 1991, said there's still plenty of worthy test pilots for the honor.

``The good news is there's a lot more that should be selected so we won't run out,'' Fulton said.

The celebration will include the city's Aviation Street Faire, which will run from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. Saturday, with displays, aviation vendors and music by an Air Force band at Boeing Plaza, under the pedestal-mounted F-4 Phantom fighter jet at Sierra Highway and Lancaster Boulevard. Admission is free.

Bronze plaques honoring the five pilots will be unveiled at 11:30 a.m. A flyby of a F-117 stealth fighter is scheduled for noon.

A formal banquet will follow at 6 that night at the Park Plaza Convention Center. Banquet tickets are $75.

City Manager Bob LaSala referred to the 2005 class as ``incredible group of men.''

Allavie's career included working as both a military and civilian test pilot. At Edwards, Allavie flew the B-52 mothership on 90 of the first 110 X-15 rocket plane test flights.

After retiring from the Air Force, Allavie joined Douglas Aircraft Co. as an engineering test pilot. At Douglas, Allavie worked on the flight test programs of the DC-8, DC-9 and DC-10 jetliners.

Lien was an Army Air Force test pilot who flew the nation's earliest jets at what is now Edwards Air Force Base. In the fall of 1943, he completed the first military performance tests of the Bell YP-59A. A few months later, Lien became the first military pilot to fly the Lockheed XP-80 jet fighter concept demonstrator.

During initial performance tests on the XP-80, Lien completed the first flight of an American aircraft flying straight and level to a speed in excess of 500 mph.

In 1946, Lien made the first flight of the Republic XP-84 and of the North American XFJ-1 Fury, a prototype for a Navy jet fighter.

Lien died in 1994.

Pearson made history in a 1985 test mission when he fired a missile from an F-15 fighter and destroyed a satellite in low Earth orbit. A fellow general described Pearson as the world's ``only anti-satellite ace.''

Pearson served as the Air Force Flight Test Center commander at Edwards from June 2001 to September 2004, capping a 34-year military career. During his tenure at Edwards, he became the first general officer to fly the F/A-22.

On active duty with the Navy from 1968 to 1983, Schneider served as an engineering test pilot and instructor test pilot at the Naval Air Test Center in Maryland. He later served as the F-4 program manager and senior test pilot at the Naval Aviation Depot near San Diego. Schneider left the Navy to join NASA, serving at NASA Dryden Flight Research Center at Edwards from 1983 to 2000. At Dryden, he served as the project pilot for the SR-71 High Speed Research Program. He also is project pilot for the F-18 Active Aeroelastic Wing aircraft, the F-18 Systems research aircraft, the NASA B-52 launch aircraft and the NASA Learjet.

Thomas logged more than 35 years in development and flight testing of military aircraft, most of that time while employed by Northrop Grumman. Thomas logged more than 8,000 hours of flying time in 116 types of aircraft.

Thomas made the first flight of the then-secret Tacit Blue aircraft on Feb. 5, 1982. The aircraft, which was flown 135 times, was used to test advances in stealth technology and contributed to the development of the B-2 bomber.

Jim Skeen, [phone]

james.skeen(at)dailynews.com