Austin L. Vick is a consulting engineer performing services for several major commercial firms engaged in the operation, maintenance, and management of instrumentation systems at various test facilities. He has served on several panels for the Department of Defense Test and Evaluation offices for both developmental test and evaluation and operational test and evaluation. He performed work for the Institute for Defense Analysis since 1988. He was a technical representative for REDLAKE Corp in 1985-1988 marketing high-speed camera and video products. He is a registered Professional Engineer and Land Surveyor in the State of New Mexico and is the owner of A V Construction specializing in residential design and construction.
Mr. Vick began his professional career upon graduating from New Mexico State University, Las Cruces, NM, in 1950. He was assigned to the Optics Branch, Ballistic Research Laboratory, U.S. Army White Sands Proving Ground (later White Sands Missile Range), NM. A pioneer in the application of optical instrumentation for the collection of flight test data on rockets and missiles, he worked with Dr. Clyde Tombaugh and others with specialized optical systems. He also organized a successful effort to obtain the first photographs of SPUTNIK and obtain flight data on its orbit.
In 1955 he transferred to the Data Reduction Division and was responsible for the establishment of the required data for missile programs at White Sands Proving Ground. He performed the final review of all test data and was the releasing authority for the validity of the data. He pioneered a process of data reduction production to shorten the delivery time of reduced data to the project to less than one-third of the previous delivery time.
In 1958 he transferred to the staff of the WSMR Commanding General in the Plans and Operations Directorate and became responsible for planning and coordinating project test requirements and the capabilities planning for White Sands Missile Range. Some significant accomplishments included the development of the "over flight" policy which expanded the testing capability of WSMR to include significant test programs "off range" to launch or impact on range, a work load measurement and forecasting system which was correlated with budget requirements, a range instrumentation performance measuring system, and established the first Quality Assurance program for WSMR.
From 1973 until his retirement in 1984, Mr. Vick was Chief of the Data Collection Division, National Range Operations Directorate. He managed an organization with more than 400 civilian and military personnel and more than 500 contractor personnel engaged in the operation and maintenance of technical instrumentation systems. The instrumentation systems consisted of radars, optics, telemetry, and the DOVAP, in addition to audiovisual systems and geodetic survey support. He was responsible for the planning and management of an annual budget of over $25 million. Some significant technical support accomplishments included providing the instrumentation and control system for three missiles against three droned full-scale aircraft targets, remote control of 12 MA5 tank targets, establishing support for Pershing missile firings from locations "off range" to WSMR, successful support of Space Shuttle STS-3 landing at WSMR with only ten days notice, and many more successful project tests.