Wilson N. McGough has been involved with Aeronautics and Astronautics his entire life. While earning a degree in aeronautical engineering at Georgia Tech., he took flying lessons and volunteered into the Army Air Corp Flight Training Program. He was copilot on the ill-fated B-17, “My Gal Sal”, and spent 10 days on the Greenland Ice Cap. He was assigned to the 8th AF in England for a year and then to the USAAF HQ Division of Operations, Commitments, and Requirements for the remainder of WWII.
Wilson spent 5 years in the Aerodynamics Department at North American Aviation Company analyzing flight test data on the B-45, F-86, and the XP-82 airplanes. The following 30 years he spent at McDonnell Douglas in St. Louis developing and evaluating the aerodynamic flight characteristics of early fighter planes: F2H-3, XF3H, F-101, and the F4H. In 1959, he was assigned to the trajectory, orbit, and re-entry analysis of the Mercury Spacecraft and subsequently he became Project Aerodynamicist on the Gemini Spacecraft. Throughout his career he has spent a great deal of time on the research and development of new aerodynamic design features. He has been a member of The American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics since January of 1945.