William J. Fox

Bill Fox was born and raised near Osage in North Central Iowa. He served in the Naval Aviation Branch of the United States   Navy aboard the aircraft carrier U.S.S. Oriskany in Korea. Upon receiving his honorable discharge, he attended Iowa State College of Engineering and the University of Minnesota.

Bill started his career at Honeywell in the Engineering Flight Test Division which took him to St. Louis, White Sands, and California for various ongoing aircraft test programs. While in California, he was assigned to the highly classified Blackbird program, which was still in the concept phase. He was assigned to Area 51 to take part in the developmental flight test program. He soon became involved with nearly every system on the aircraft.

Following that program he became Engineering and Program Manager for the Lockheed/NASA/Air Force YF-12 Blackbird Research Program. Then as stealth programs began in the late 1970’s, he went back to Area 51 as Lockheed’s Site Manager and Engineering Flight Test Manager for various stealth programs. When Lockheed started a division in Texas, Bill transferred as Engineering Flight Test Manager for the Aquila, an unmanned aircraft used as a battlefield overhead target designator for the Army.

In 2002, Bill was selected as one of 20 charter members of the Blackbird Laurels Society which was organized to honor those deemed most responsible for the success of the Blackbird.

Retired since 1988, Bill spends much of his time giving presentations about the Blackbird.