JOHN A. MANKE, NASA

John Manke was the last NASA pilot assigned to the X-15 program, but he never flew the airplane. Manke was born on 13 November 1931 in Selby, South Dakota. He attended the University of South Dakota before being selected for the NROTC program in 1951, and graduated from the Marquette University in Milwaukee in 1966 with a bachelor of science degree in electrical engineering. Following graduation, Manke entered flight training and served as a fighter pilot with the Marine Corps. He left the service in 1960 and worked for Honeywell for two years.

NASA hired Manke on 25 May 1962 as a flight research engineer, and he served as an X-15 flight planner. Along with Mike Adams, Manke completed X-15 "ground school" and conducted a test run of the XLR99 in the Rocket Engine Test Facility. Manke left the X-15 program after the X-15- 3 accident that claimed Mike Adams’s life. On 28 May 1968 he flew the HL-10, the first of his 42 flights in a heavyweight lifting body.

After the X-15 program ended, Manke became chief of flight operations at the FRC in October 1981 and continued in that capacity until he retired on 27 April 1984.