Martin A. "Marty" Knutson (May 31, 1930 - December 11, 2013) served as Director of Flight Operations for

NASA The National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA ) is an independent agency of the US federal government responsible for the civil space program, aeronautics research, and space research. NASA was established in 1958, succeeding t ...

Ames Research Center The Ames Research Center (ARC), also known as NASA Ames, is a major NASA research center at Moffett Federal Airfield in California's Silicon Valley. It was founded in 1939 as the second National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics (NACA) laborat ...

Moffett Field Moffett Federal Airfield , also known as Moffett Field, is a joint civil-military airport located in an Local government in California#Counties, unincorporated part of Santa Clara County, California, Santa Clara County, California, United States, ...

, CA, and also as site manager of the Ames-Dryden Flight Research Facility at

Edwards Air Force Base Edwards Air Force Base (AFB) is a United States Air Force installation in California. Most of the base sits in Kern County, but its eastern end is in San Bernardino County and a southern arm is in Los Angeles County. The hub of the base is E ...

in CA, at that time a satellite facility of Ames, from May 1984 through late 1990. Born in St. Louis Park, he attended the

University of Minnesota The University of Minnesota, formally the University of Minnesota, Twin Cities, (UMN Twin Cities, the U of M, or Minnesota) is a public university, public Land-grant university, land-grant research university in the Minneapolis–Saint Paul, Tw ...

, majoring in electrical engineering. Knutson joined the U.S. Navy, before transferring to the

Air Force An air force – in the broadest sense – is the national military branch that primarily conducts aerial warfare. More specifically, it is the branch of a nation's armed services that is responsible for aerial warfare as distinct from an a ...

as an aviation

cadet A cadet is an officer trainee or candidate. The term is frequently used to refer to those training to become an officer in the military, often a person who is a junior trainee. Its meaning may vary between countries which can include youths in ...

in 1950. Following service in Korea and participation in developmental testing and operational missions in the

F-84 The Republic F-84 Thunderjet was an American turbojet fighter-bomber aircraft. Originating as a 1944 United States Army Air Forces (USAAF) proposal for a "day fighter", the F-84 first flew in 1946. Although it entered service in 1947, the Thu ...

and F-86, he was recruited to fly the U-2 reconnaissance aircraft for the

Central Intelligence Agency The Central Intelligence Agency (CIA ), known informally as the Agency and historically as the Company, is a civilian foreign intelligence service of the federal government of the United States, officially tasked with gathering, processing, ...

in 1955. He was assigned to Det A, the first U-2 detachment to deploy operationally. On July 9, 1956 he flew the third overflight of the USSR, Mission 2020 in a U-2A. The sortie from Wiesbaden took him over Berlin, Riga, Kaunas, Vilnius and Minsk. After re-assignment to Det B he flew Operation TOUCHDOWN, the 20th Soviet overflight, exactly three years later, (also in a U-2A). This mission was launched from Peshawar, Pakistan and landed nine hours later in the Iranian desert. He retired from the USAF in 1970. Knutson joined NASA in 1971 as manager of U-2 flight operations at Ames and was one of several pilots who flew the aircraft on Earth resources science missions. He later flew the ER-2, an updated model of the U-2 that remains in service at NASA Dryden today. During Knutson's six years at Dryden he maintained the facility at operational readiness for Space Shuttle landings and replaced Dryden's aging fleet of

F-104 The Lockheed F-104 Starfighter is an American single-engine, supersonic air superiority fighter which was extensively deployed as a fighter-bomber during the Cold War. Created as a day fighter by Lockheed as one of the "Century Series" of fi ...

support aircraft with

F/A-18 Hornet The McDonnell Douglas F/A-18 Hornet is an all-weather, twinjet, twin-engine, supersonic aircraft, supersonic, carrier-based aircraft, carrier-capable, Multirole combat aircraft, multirole combat aircraft, designed as both a Fighter aircraft, ...

s. He also provided leadership for numerous flight research projects including the

X-29 The Grumman X-29 was an American experimental aircraft that tested a forward-swept wing, canard (aeronautics), canard control surfaces, and other novel aircraft technologies. The X-29 was developed by Grumman, and the two built were flown by N ...

forward-swept-wing technology demonstrator; the

Controlled Impact Demonstration The Controlled Impact Demonstration (or colloquially the Crash In the Desert) was a joint project between NASA and the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) that intentionally crashed a remotely controlled Boeing 720 aircraft to acquire d ...

, the

F-15 The McDonnell Douglas F-15 Eagle is an American twin-engine, all-weather tactical fighter aircraft designed by McDonnell Douglas (now part of Boeing). Following reviews of proposals, the United States Air Force selected McDonnell Douglas's ...

Digital Electronic Engine Control project that integrated propulsion and flight controls, the

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air-launched rocket for placing small payloads into

low Earth orbit A low Earth orbit (LEO) is an orbit around Earth with a period of 128 minutes or less (making at least 11.25 orbits per day) and an eccentricity less than 0.25. Most of the artificial objects in outer space are in LEO, with an altitude never mor ...

; the CV-990 Landing Systems Research aircraft that tested improved braking systems for the

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; and the F-18

High Alpha Research Vehicle The High Alpha Research Vehicle was a modified American McDonnell Douglas F/A-18 Hornet used by NASA in a three-phase program investigating controlled flight at high alpha (angle of attack) using thrust vectoring, modifications to the flight co ...

. After the Air Force announced the impending retirement of the

SR-71 Blackbird The Lockheed SR-71 "Blackbird" is a long-range, high-altitude, Mach 3+ strategic reconnaissance aircraft developed and manufactured by the American aerospace company Lockheed Corporation. It was operated by the United States Air Force ...

, Knutson successfully sought to acquire three of the airplanes for Dryden. In late 1990 he returned to Ames where he served as chief of flight operations until his retirement in 1997. His awards include the

Meritorious Service Medal A Meritorious Service Medal is an award presented to denote acts of meritorious service, and sometimes gallantry, that are worthy of recognition. Notable medals with similar names include: *Meritorious Civilian Service Award *Meritorious Service Med ...

and the Distinguished Flying Cross, both from the Air Force, NASA's Outstanding Leadership Award, and the Presidential Rank of Meritorious Executive. He was an Associate Fellow of the Society of Experimental Test Pilots and a charter member of the federal government's Senior Executive Service.

References

NASA Dryden Center Director Biography: Martin A. Knutson
{{DEFAULTSORT:Knutson, Martin 1930 births 2013 deaths University of Minnesota College of Science and Engineering alumni People of the Central Intelligence Agency Recipients of the Distinguished Flying Cross (United States) United States Air Force officers