Nevada Aerospace Hall of Fame

Declaration of Enshrinement

 November 17, 2012

William C. “Bill” Park, Jr.

In 1961, William C. Park joined Lockheed’s legendary “Skunk Works”  to become the second pilot assigned to the Central Intelligence Agency’s OXCART program. He piloted his first flight in the highly classified A-12 reconnaissance aircraft on June 21, 1962.  He was the first pilot to fly the A-12 to its design cruise speed more than Mach 3 (over 1900 mph) and design altitude above 80,000 feet. Park performed an impressive demonstration of the A-12’s Oxcart capabilities on December 21, 1966, flying 10,198 statute miles in six hours, beginning and ending his flight at Groom Lake, Nevada. In 1977, Park became the chief project pilot for Lockheed’s Have Blue experimental stealth technology demonstrator, the first airplane designed to be virtually invisible to radar. He flew 24 of 32 flights in the first of the two airframes built for the top-secret program.

For his contributions to the test and evaluation of every variant of the Lockheed Blackbird aircraft as well as Lockheed’s Have Blue experimental stealth demonstrator, William C. Park earned his place in the Nevada Aerospace Hall of Fame.

___________________________________

TD BARNES, Executive Director

Nevada Aerospace Hall of Fame