NEW DIRECTOR FOR LASER PLANE DANIELS TO REPLACE PAWLIKOWSKI IN TEST PROGRAM.

Byline: Daily News

EDWARDS AIR FORCE BASE - Col. John A. Daniels will return this spring to the airborne laser program as its director.

In the program, the world's first laser-armed combat aircraft, designed to shoot down enemy missiles from several hundred kilometers away, is being tested.

He will replace Col. Ellen Pawlikowski, who has been assigned to Los Angeles Air Force Base. Selected to become a brigadier general, she will direct the Military Satellite Communications Joint Program Office, Space and Missile Systems Center for the Air Force Space Command.

Daniels, based at Kirtland Air Force Base in New Mexico, served as chief of the Airborne Laser Management Operations Division from July 2001 to June 2002 and as deputy director from July 2002 to April 2003.

Most recently, Daniels has been commander of the Defense Contract Management Agency's Boeing operation at Long Beach, working on programs including C-17 and C-130 avionics modernization and B-1 conventional munitions upgrading.

Pawlikowski has been airborne laser director since March 2000.

Daniels enlisted in the Air Force in 1979 and began his career as a crew chief on the C-141A aircraft. He graduated from officer training in 1985 and from the Air War College at Maxwell Air Force Base, Ala., in 2001.

He has a bachelor's degree in mechanical engineering from North Carolina State University and a master's degree in aeronautical engineering from the Air Force Institute of Technology at Wright Patterson Air Force Base in Ohio.

At Edwards Air Force Base, a chemical oxygen iodine laser is being tested in a Boeing 747-400 freighter, designated YAL-1A.

Testing of the aircraft and the laser will continue for much of this year.

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(color) The world's first laser-armed combat aircraft flies over Edwards Air Force Base in a testing program that will change directors in the spring.