This an edited transcript of an oral history interview of Thomas Morgenfeld conducted by Peter J. Westwick. Thomas Morgenfeld was a Navy pilot and, from 1979 to 2004, test pilot for Lockheed's Skunk Works. Morgenfeld was born August 13, 1943, and raised in Hamburg, New York. He graduated from the US Naval Academy in 1965 and was designated a naval aviator in 1967. He had two fleet tours flying the F-8, including 90 combat missions in Vietnam. Between the tours he earned a master's degree in aeronautical engineering from the Naval Postgraduate School. In 1975 he attended Empire Test Pilots School in England, then became a test pilot at Point Mugu, where he flew the F-18 as well as several classified programs. He then served with a Navy squadron flying captured Soviet MiG airplanes. In December 1979 he joined Lockheed's Skunk Works as test pilot, where he flew the F-117 and the YF-22. In 1991 he was named chief test pilot for the Skunk Works, and he was chief test pilot for the Joint Strike Fighter, including first flight on the X-35. He and his wife, the former Norma Shoemaker, have two sons. He retired from Lockheed in 2004. [Object file name], Aerospace Oral History Project, The Huntington Library, San Marino, California.
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