NEW 'ACES' TO BE INDUCTED INTO WALK OF HONOR LANCASTER TO COMMEMORATE LIVES, CAREERS OF FIVE AEROSPACE VETERANS.

Byline: Jim Skeen Staff Writer

LANCASTER - The pilot of a secret plane, an X-15 mothership pilot, a tester of early jet fighters, a satellite ace and a recent NASA flier are this year's inductees into Lancaster's Aerospace Walk of Honor.

The 2005 Walk of Honor inductees are John ``Jack'' Allavie, Wallace ``Wally'' Lien, retired Maj. Gen. Wilbert ``Doug'' Pearson, Edward Schneider and Richard ``Dick'' Thomas. The five men will be inducted into the Walk of Honor during a ceremony on Sept. 24.

The Walk of Honor, now in its 16th year, celebrates test pilots with ties to Edwards Air Force Base who have made outstanding contributions to aerospace.

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 Company 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.

Pearson is a pilot with more than 4,000 hours of flying time, including 364 combat hours in Vietnam. He has flown more than 40 different types of aircraft, including the F-4, F-15 and F-20 fighters.

The Walk of Honor is the second such accolade for Schneider. In 1998, he was inducted into the James B. Taylor Jr. Memorial Carrier Aviation Test Pilots Hall of Honor aboard the USS Yorktown, now a floating museum in Charleston, S.C.

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.

Schneider logged more than 6,000 hours in 83 types of aircraft.

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 different 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.

``Considered the leading 'force' of the entire flight test team throughout the program, Thomas was the pilot with over 60 percent of program flights,'' according to his Walk of Honor nomination paper. ``However, he was never able to speak about or to receive credit for this program.''

The Sept. 24 celebration will include the city's Aviation Street Faire, which will run from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m., 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 formal banquet will follow at 6 that night at the Park Plaza Convention Center. Banquet tickets are $75.

Jim Skeen, [phone]

james.skeen(at)dailynews.com

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Photo:

(1) ALLAVIE

(2) LIEN

(3) PEARSON

(4) SCHNEIDER

(5) THOMAS