My friend, Neil Armstrong
Longtime South Bay resident and aerospace industry veteran Nissen Davis met Neil Armstrong at the A-Bar A Ranch in 1979, beginning a friendship that would endure the rest of the astronaut’s life. I met Neil Armstrong at an aerospace industry retreat on Charlie Gates’ A-Bar-A ranch in Wyoming in 1979. I was then a VP for Flying Tiger Line. After dinner one evening we were sitting outside in the moonlight when one of the coeds waiting tables said, “Oh Mr. Armstrong, I want you to know I have jumped out of a plane seven times.” With a twinkle in his blue eyes, Neil asked “On purpose?” As she walked away, he said quietly, “I never saw the sense of jumping out of perfectly good airplanes.” For reasons I have never quite understood, Neil and I became friends at the ranch, a bond that continued throughout the rest of his life. In 1984 I joined McDonnell Douglas, Long Beach as director of communications. I dropped Neil a line to let him know this, and he replied on his Computing Technologies for Aviation, Inc. letterhead with his usual gentle humor: “Delighted to hear of your new position at Douglas. Sounds like enough responsibility to keep you out of trouble.” In 1994 I was head of…
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