David Safford served as a US Navy A-7E pilot from 1976 through 1984. During his service, he accumulated over 1500 hours in the A-7E, and triple centurion (300 traps) on the USS Kitty Hawk. He also served as a weapon system test pilot at the Navy Weapons Center, China Lake, where he led flight validation for A-7E software, and several weapon systems, including the AGM-123 (Skipper) missile, shown in the photo. He received a Navy Commendation Medal for his work at China Lake. After leaving the Navy, he worked on embedded computer security at IBM and GE, including security for commercial and military avionics systems. He is now retired, but still active in open source computer security.