William H. "Bill" McAvoy was a civilian test pilot in the 1920s and 1930s for the National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics (NACA) at the Langley Memorial Aeronautical Laboratory, Langley Field, Virginia, and in 1940 helped start the flight operations division at the Ames Research Center, California.

Edmund Turney Allen was a pioneer of modern flight test who flew for nearly every major American aircraft manufacturer and took some of the most famous planes of all time up for their first flights.