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Dana Marcotte Kilanowski, Historian of the Society of Experimental Test Pilots has served as a Director of the Flight Test Historical Foundation since 1991. Dana is an award winning historian, author, documentary filmmaker and archaeologist with over 25 years experience writing and producing documentaries and books about test pilots and the history of flight testing. In 2007, she was honored by the Society of Experimental Test Pilots by being named a "Friend of the Society".
As Principal Investigator and Oral Historian for the DOD Legacy Oral History Project at Edwards Air Force Base from 1991 to 1994, Dana set up an oral history program for Edwards AFB, which was subsequently used as a model for DOD worldwide. Widely recognized as a leading authority on aviation pioneer Florence Lowe "Pancho" Barnes, Dana appeared on The History Channel as a Guest Historian during the airing of the Pancho Barnes movie on "Movies in Time" in 1997. She also co-produced "Mach One, The Times, The Team, The Sound Barrier" for The History Channel and co-authored and co-edited the companion book, "The Quest for Mach One, A First Person Account of Breaking the Sound Barrier." The Quest for Mach One, which was based upon her oral history interviews of Brig Gen Chuck Yeager, Brig Gen Robert L. Cardenas, Bob Hoover and Jack Russell, published by Viking Penguin Studio Books, was selected by the American Library Association as a "Best Book Selection" in 1998 and 1999.
In 1997, Dana was named a "Key Research Historian for the Cold War Era" by the DOD Center for Environmental Excellence for her historic properties identification and evaluation reports for the Air Force Flight Test Center at Edwards AFB and for her filmed oral history interviews of the Jet and Rocket Pioneers of America. In 1999, she was a contributor and consultant for Time-Life Books, "Our American Centrury: A Century of Flight" on Chapter 6, "Something New Under the Sun, Jets Come of Age." In 2003 the Society of Experimental Test Pilots selected Dana to set up an oral history program for the Society to conduct filmed oral history interviews of the most famous test pilots and astronauts of the century for SETP's historical archives and to preserve the history of flight testing. She is also a co-producer of Legends of Flight and co-author and co-editor of two histories of the U.S. Air Force Test Pilot School at Edwards AFB. Dana has been an active fund raiser for the Air Force Flight Test Center Museum at Edwards Air Force Base, CA and the Blackbird Airpark at U.S. Air Force Plant 42 in Palmdale, CA. She is married to former test pilot, Lt Col Samuel J. Kilanowski. USAF (Retired) and has two daughters, Kristen and Samantha and four grandchildren, Asiah, Alexis, Aiden and Hunter.
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