Welcome to AVTECH Research Corporation professional operations training

AVTECH Research Corporation was formed in January 1997 as a Nevada small business entity specializing in technical and engineering support to the aerospace community. Our organization is comprised of retired and active duty USAF fighter pilots, weapons systems officers, and maintenance professionals with extensive backgrounds in worldwide fighter employment and support. All AVTECH personnel are currently or have previously been assigned at Nellis Air Force Base, Nevada, and have served in a variety of senior positions in the Air Warfare Center. AVTECH personnel have had a continuous military and contractor presence at Nellis since 1972 and are intimately familiar with the daily operations of the Air Warfare Center.

AVTECH's focus is to utilize our extensive operational fighter expertise in support of Joint Test & Evaluation (JT&E), Developmental Test & Evaluation (DT&E), Operational Test & Evaluation (OT&E) flight test support, and research and development. We provide a wide spectrum of skills within these programs such as program management, engineering support, maintenance support, data reduction, documentation, reports, briefings, multimedia production and academics.

Our personnel have extensive experience with the F-4C-E, F-5, F-16A-D, F-15C, F-15E, and F-22A weapons systems. AVTECH also has the ACC-acknowledged IR missile expert at Nellis with extensive experience testing IR missile seekers and advanced IR weaponry technology, including all of the systems involved in the Visually-Coupled Acquisition and Targeting System (VCATS) test program.

Since August 1997, AVTECH has supported the Air Force Research Labs (AFRL) Helmet-Mounted Sensory Technology (HMST). We are a "hands on" support contractor, involved in every detail of test execution. Our personnel perform critical testing of the VCATS HMST/D equipment prior to and after each test mission on the Programmable Image display System (PIDS) tester and in the aircraft. We have coordinated configuration and set-up of the high off-boresight angle (HOBA) captive-carry missile seekers prior to each sortie and coordinated the configuration control for the Merlin, Nellis Air Combat Training System (NACTS), and Firefly data collection systems. AVTECH has provided flight-line support of every aircraft launch and recovery since August, 1997. AVTECH personnel continue to maintain an intimate understanding of system modes of operation, component interface, display symbology, and system control (switchology).

AVTECH Research Corporation is extremely proud of is it's association with SAF/IA's efforts to provide releasable Tactics manuals to our coalition partners around the world. We have been involved in this process since its inception in the fall of 1998 and now provide tactics manuals for 25 countries.

AVTECH takes great pride in maintaining a lean, cost effective, highly skilled operation. We are prepared to support a variety of customer requirements pertaining to the CAF mission. Our presence and experience at Nellis can have a significant synergistic effect on your programs.

As Earl Henderson "Obi Wan" was growing up in Houston Texas his dream was to become an Air Force fighter pilot. After graduating from Texas A&M with a degree in Aeronautical Engineering and a commission from ROTC he entered the USAF. During his 28 year career he has flown six different single-seat fighters and acquired over 3,000 hours fighter time, including 300 hours combat time in the F-105D gained during a 100 mission tour out of Korat AB, Thailand.

He served in multiple stateside USAF ACC bases and two tours in PACAF at Korat and Clark AB. He is a veteran at Nellis AFB, the Home of the Fighter Pilot, with two military tours totaling over 20 years, plus an additional 11 years as a civilian contractor.

He is a highly decorated combat veteran with a Silver Star and six Distinguished Flying Crosses. After he retired from the USAF he founded AVTECH in 1997 and since then his leadership and military knowledge has been used to help the Air Force be a better war fighting machine.

Over 28 years of experience in all facets of complex operations. Background in training program development for, and support of air combat and joint operations to include acquisition, test and evaluation, control of large instrumented ranges, integration of exercise control groups, and development of large bilateral and multilateral training initiatives.

Experience includes documented success in senior executive leadership positions managing organizations of 750 or more employees with operating budgets in excess of $26m annually. Joint doctrine, theater missile defense, and air operations expert. Detailed experience in control of critical requirements and test programs, large flying operations, modeling and simulations, and quality initiatives.

He gained extensive experience in developing and delivering formal technical presentations and executing international agreements. He has senior level experience in negotiating business new starts and developing funding options for developmental programs.

After growing up as an "Air Force brat" Chip went on to join the Air Force in the Fall of 1977. After getting his undergraduate degree in Biology from Valdosta State College he went on to get his masters in Personal Management from Central Michigan University and began training to be a navigator. Upon graduation from Navigator training, he received an F-4 beginning a fighter career that would accumulate over 2,200 flight hours.

During his career Chip completed the F-4 Fighter Weapons School, graduating at the top of his class as a DG. In addition, he also completed SOS, did Air Command and Staff College by correspondence and Air War College by seminar. During his 22-year career he was stationed in USAFE, ACC and PACAF, including two tours at Nellis. While assigned to the 4485th Test Squadron at Eglin he served as Chief, Weapons Flight and as project officer for numerous precision-guided munitions operational tests and evaluations (GBU-15, AGM-130, ARN-101 and AGM-65E). Also served as liaison for Navy and Marine laser maverick operational evaluation and PAVE TACK with GBU-27 operational test and evaluation.

While serving as the Deputy J3, for United States Forces Japan, instrumental in the development of several large scale joint bilateral Command Post and Field Training Exercises. These Exercises were the first to introduce Theater Ballistic Missile exercise play into the exercise scenario. Upon retiring in 1999 he became the Senior Vice President at AVTECH Research Corporation and is using his vast knowledge of the USAF and fighters to provide better war-fighting capability to the USAF.