The Grainger College of Engineering

Eugene G. Hill

Eugene G. Hill
Eugene G. Hill
To Eugene G. Hill, for seminal contributions to aircraft safety as a researcher, designer, manager, and international leader in commercial aviation.

Chief Scientist and Technical Advisor for Environmental Icing, Federal Aviation Administration (retired), Seattle,Washington.

  • BS, 1957, Aerospace Engineering, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
  • MBA, 1973, International Finance Concentration, Seattle University

 A leader in ground and in-flight icing research, Eugene G. Hill has a distinguished record of nearly 50 years of service to the advancement of aeronautics through improved flight safety. He worked for the Federal Aviation Administration as the Chief Scientific and Technical Advisor for Environmental Icing from 1996 until his retirement in early 2007. In this role, he served as a recognized national and international expert and consultant with a high level of technical knowledge and professional expertise in the field of aircraft icing protection.

Hill has worked with meteorological research organizations such as the National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR) and the Meteorological Service of Canada (MSC) to ensure the proper collaboration and execution of vital weather research. His effort to foster and encourage collaboration among these groups has been key to the recent success enjoyed in weather research and forecasting capabilities for icing. Prior to joining the FAA, Hill worked for The Boeing Company for 37 years. There he managed ground and in-flight icing programs and was responsible for Boeing policies, plans, and strategies for addressing in-flight icing and related regulatory issues. This research led the field and defined and presented, for the first time, a clear understanding of the effects of icing and quantified this impact on aircraft operations.

His research on anti-icing fluids, in collaboration with Thomas Zierten,was the basis for the “aerodynamic acceptance test”—an important contribution to operational safety—that was adopted by the Society of Aeronautic Engineers and is still used in the industry. Earlier in his career at Boeing, he was a co-inventor on two patents for reconfigurable leading-edge flap systems for high-lift wing configurations. He was responsible for the aerodynamic configuration and performance of the Next-Generation 737, and during his career at Boeing, he managed testing development at the Boeing Aerodynamic Laboratory and was involved in the development of the Boeing models 707, 720, 727, and 767, and their certifications for U.S. and foreign agencies.

Since 1998, Hill has served on the Department of Aerospace Engineering Alumni Advisory Board. In 1999, he was awarded the AE Department’s Distinguished Alumnus Award. Hill was awarded the Society of Automotive Engineers 2004 Franklin W. Kolk Air Transportation Progress Award in recognition of his leadership in the field of aircraft icing and broad, outstanding contributions to the SAE and to aviation safety. During 2007, he was recognized for his outstanding contributions to the SAE Technical Standards Board.

Current as of 2008.