Nationality United States Years active 1964 – 2012 | Name Roger Zwieg Died January 9, 2015 | |
Full Name Roger Carl Zwieg Born 26 July 1942 Watertown, South Dakota Occupation Flight instructor and test pilot Resting place Bradley First Lutheran Church Education South Dakota State University, La Salle University Employer United States Air Force, Louisiana Air National Guard, NASA | ||
Roger Carl Zwieg (26 July 1942 – 9 January 2015) was a National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) flight instructor and test pilot. He was born in Watertown, South Dakota, graduated from South Dakota State College in 1964, and was commissioned to the United States Air Force (USAF). He joined NASA in 1970, working at the Johnson Space Center in Houston, Texas.
Whilst in the USAF, Zwieg was stationed at Reese Air Force Base in Lubbock, Texas as a flight instructor.
During his first years at NASA, Zwieg flew in support of the Apollo program, Skylab, and the Apollo–Soyuz Test Project. Later, he became the primary flight instructor for astronauts training in the Shuttle Training Aircraft, a Gulfstream II modified to mimic the flight characteristics of the Space Shuttle. He trained every astronaut who would ever pilot a shuttle. Roger held a world's record for flight time in the T-38 of over 10,498 hours.
After retiring from NASA in 2010, Roger Zwieg continued to work as a test pilot for various companies including Northrop Grumman. Roger held an Airline Transport Pilot Licence, and accumulated over 29,500 hours flying more than 150 different aircraft during a half-century career. He was diagnosed with cancer in 2012 and died in 2015.