[At] MIT Lincoln Laboratory’s Flight Test Facility in Bedford, Massachusetts...you’ll find seven aircraft ranging from a Cessna 206 single-engine private plane to a Gulfstream IV multiengine business jet to a Boeing 707. One of the people who flies those airplanes is Lincoln Laboratory flight test pilot Thomas Washington ’92, SM ’94 [Course 16, Aeroastro].

Taking to heart his father’s counsel that “if you’re going to learn something from somebody, then you want to learn from the best that you can,” he mapped out a methodical plan. “I wanted to do this flight test thing. I figured in order to do that, I have to have two things: some sort of engineering degree, and experience flying airplanes. So OK, where do I need to go to get the best technical education and the best flying experience? That’s where MIT and the air force came together.”

"Flying for MIT," Slice of MIT, 12 July 2019