George E.Cooper 1916-2016

Educated as a mining engineer, trained as a pilot in WWII, and flew the P-47 "Jug" with the 412th Fighter Squadron in the European Theater. After the war, he pursued a successful career as chief research test pilot for NASA at AMES. He devised the Cooper Pilot Opinion Rating Scale which was initially published in 1957
After several [27] years of experience gained in its application to many flight and simulator experiments and through its use by the military services and aircraft industry, it was subsequently modified in collaboration with Robert (Bob) Harper of the Cornell Aeronautical Laboratory and became the Cooper-Harper Handling Qualities Rating Scale in 1969 . This rating scale has been one of the enduring contributions of flying qualities research at Ames over the past 40 years; the scale remains as the standard way of measuring flying qualities to this day. In recognition of his many contributions to aviation safety, Cooper received the Adm. Luis de Florez Flight Safety Award in 1966 and the Richard Hansford Burroughs, Jr., Test Pilot Award in 1971. After he retired, both he and Bob Harper were selected by the American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics to reprise the Cooper-Harper Rating Scale in the 1984 Wright Brothers Lectureship in Aeronautics.