Robert O. Dietz, a recognized ground test expert nationally and internationally who was one of the first individuals to become a fellow of Arnold Engineering Development Center, died Jan. 19 at his home in Manchester, Tenn. Dietz served as Director of Technology and Deputy of Planning at AEDC in the late 1960s, but he started at the Tennessee R&D facility in 1950, working with a contractor. His long career included stints as director of the von Karman Institute for Fluid Dynamics in Belgium and as US representative to NATO’s fluid dynamics panel. He also helped develop the National Transonic Facility at NASA’s Langley Research Center in Virginia. He was inducted as an AEDC fellow in 1989. (Arnold report by Philip Lorenz III)
A new report from the Government Accountability Office calls for the Pentagon’s Chief Technology Officer to have budget certification authority over the military services’ research and development accounts—a move the services say would add a burdensome and unnecessary layer of bureaucracy.
