George Watkins, who set records as a Navy test pilot in the 1950s and later delighted in unnerving a new generation of pilots at his aerobatic-glider school, has died. He was 84.
Mr. Watkins, who also served as a White House social aide for three presidents, died Sept. 18 after a heart attack here, according to his wife, Monica.
Over a 30-year military career, Mr. Watkins set records for speed, altitude and number of landings on an aircraft carrier. After graduating from the U.S. Naval Academy during World War II, he served in the Pacific as a battery turret officer on the battleship Pennsylvania. When the Navy needed pilots, he signed up and earned his wings just after the war ended.
At the Navy’s test pilot school in Patuxent River, Md., two classmates in 1950 were future astronauts John Glenn and Alan Shepard. But at 5-foot-11, Mr. Watkins was an inch too tall to join the Mercury astronaut program later that decade. During the Korean War, he was a fighter pilot.
Among other records, he was the first Navy pilot to exceed 60,000 feet and 70,000 feet in altitude.
In 1991, Mr. Watkins bought a school for glider pilots near Palmdale, Calif., and ran it for seven years.
