Fred Carl Gardner, Captain USAF, Retired, began his Federal Aviation Administration career in July 1967 as an FAA Airman Examination Specialist and later advanced to the position of FAA Aviation Safety Inspector. As an Aviation Safety Inspector, Mr. Gardner planned, coordinated and developed orders, notices, and advisory circulars that established the conduct and management of the FAA airmen certification testing programs. He also performed many special assignments, including development of FAA regulations, educational evaluation studies, and flight training handbooks. He performed much of the research and study used to develop national policy for airmen training and evaluation.
From August 1951 until July 1967, he was a flight instructor and flight supervisor for the U.S. Air Force and U.S. Army civilian contract flying schools. In 1953, one of his students was Jack Swigert, Command Module Pilot on Apollo 13. From 1941 to 1951, Mr. Gardner served in various capacities for the military and private aviation contract schools, including those of aircraft maintenance engineering officer and flight instructor.
He began his service in the Air Corps as an airplane mechanic, and then was accepted for pilot training. His distinguished 25 years of FAA service include many achievements: he developed and maintained the Aviation Instructor Handbook, an industry standard used by our military services for training aviation instructors. He revised and maintained the Instrument Flying Handbook, the industry standard for training both pilots and flight instructors for instrument pilot ratings.
He developed orders governing the conduct of airmen written tests and computer testing of airmen knowledge. These orders are worldwide in scope and guide the administration of over 200,000 airmen tests each year. He also developed highly successful flight instructor practical test standards from experience, research and study. These works established objective FAA certification standards for flight instructors throughout the world. In 1992, Mr. Gardner received the FAA Distinguished Career Service Award from the Administrator of the Federal Aviation Administration.