Walter C. Williams

Walter Charles Williams (July 30, 1919 – October 7, 1995) was an American engineer, leader of the National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics (NACA) group at Edwards Air Force Base in the 1940s and 1950s, and a NASA deputy associate administrator during Project Mercury.

Biography Walter Charles Williams was born in New Orleans, Louisiana, on July 30, 1919. He received a Bachelor of Science degree in aeronautical engineering from Louisiana State University (LSU) in 1939, and worked for Glenn L. Martin Company in Baltimore, Maryland. He joined the National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics (NACA), in August 1940. During World War II he served as a project engineer on projects to improve the performance and handling of fighter aircraft such as the Republic P-47 Thunderbolt, North American P-51 Mustang and Grumman F6F Hellcat. He was involved in the testing of the X-1, the aircraft in which United States Air Force (USAF) Captain Chuck Yeager carried out the first piloted supersonic flight at Muroc on October 14, 1947.

Williams went on to direct test programs for the new generation of jet aircraft, including Douglas D-558-2 Skyrocket, the first aircraft to fly at twice the speed of sound; the Bell X-5, which pioneered the variable-sweep wing; the Convair XF-92, which pioneered the delta wing, and the Century Series of supersonic aircraft which were the fruits of his research in supersonic flight. In January 1958, he became chairman of the Flight Test Steering Committee for the hypersonic North American X-15. Haley Astronautics Award in 1964, the American Astronautical Society Space Flight Award in 1978, and the Federal Engineer of the Year Award from the National Society of Professional Engineers in 1981. He was awarded an honorary Doctor of Engineering degree by LSU in 1963.

Williams died at his home in Tarzana, California, on October 7, 1995. He was survived by his wife Helen Manning Williams; sons Charles M. Williams and Howard L. Williams; and daughter, Elizabeth Ann Powell. On November 17, 1995, Kenneth J. Szalai, the director of the Dryden Flight Research Center renamed the Integrated Test Facility (ITF) there the Walter C. Williams Research Aircraft Integration Facility in his honor.