Former NASA Dryden Fight Research Center Director Kevin Petersen got an April Fool's Day surprise when he arrived at work on April 1, 2009 – the HiMAT remotely piloted research aircraft sitting in his parking space in front of Dryden's main building.
ED09-0078-14
Former NASA Dryden Fight Research Center Director Kevin Petersen got an April Fool’s Day surprise when he arrived at work on April 1, 2009 – the HiMAT remotely piloted research aircraft sitting in his parking space in front of Dryden’s main building. The sub-scale aircraft had been in storage at NASA Ames Research Center since the Highly Maneuverable Aircraft Technology project, on which Petersen had been a research engineer, ended in 1983. Under leadership of Dryden’s maintenance chief Tom Grindle, the HiMAT aircraft was brought back to Dryden, cleaned up, and positioned in his parking space without Petersen’s knowledge as an April Fool’s Day joke three days before his retirement from NASA.
April 1, 2009
NASA / Tony Landis