- Date Of Birth: October 3, 1927
- Date Of Death: May 12, 2015
- State: Texas
October 3, 1927 – May 12, 2015
Dan Delton Fulgham, COL USAF (Ret) died May 12, 2015. He was born to Frank and Marsena Fulgham in Grapeland, TX on Oct. 3, 1927, the eldest of three sons. Dan had an extraordinary career in the military and private industry. He served a total of 32 years in the military as both a warrior and a scientist, continuing working in private industry well beyond the typical retirement age. He was a Command Pilot (4500hrs), Master Parachutist (experimental 110 jumps) military balloon pilot, graduate of Forest Service’s Smoke Jumpers School. When not flying airplanes, or jumping out of them, his military service was spent in research and development related to high altitude and space flight. Up to the time of his death he continued to actively lecture about the things in which he was personally involved – including many of the most interesting and momentous events of the second half of the 20th century. Dan and his wife, Dawn, built a home in Boerne in 1988. Dan made many friends as a member of the Boerne Noontime Rotary and the Boerne Sunrise Rotary. He was the epitome of the Rotary creed, “Service Above Self”, and was always available with a helping hand. He was affectionately known as Dr. Dan to his friends, but he was Pa-Pa to the many children who adored him. He was an animal lover, with a reputation for blatantly “stealing” dogs that he had come to love. He enjoyed entertaining friends in his home, and was famous for his special Dr Dan Martini’s. He is survived by his wife Dawn Armstrong Fulgham and her family in Boerne, Texas, including daughter Misty Thomas, granddaughter Chandra Runge, and great-granddaughter Braelyn Barclay. His son Dr. Pat Fox Fulgham and family reside in Richardson, Texas and his daughter Tracy Kaestner and her family in Houston. Daughter Bonny Absher and her family live in San Antonio, daughter Janet Clark and family are in Albuquerque, NM; Lorena Zuehl and family of Spring Branch, TX, and son Danny Fulgham of New Braunfels, TX. Dr Dan had many friends he considered family. After attending high school in Pasadena, TX, Dan enrolled in the pre-med program at the University of Houston. He received medic training while in the U.S. Army where he served from 1945-1946 and was in the Air National Guard from 1947-1950. Always fascinated with flying and with the military he entered pilot training at Texas A&M in 1946. The end of World War II diverted him into the then fledgling U.S. Air Force where he subsequently flew 100 combat missions in Korea piloting the F-84. After the Korean War the U.S. Air Force was aggressively experimenting with high-altitude aircraft and the response of the human body to the near-space environment. Fulgham became the bioastronautics project officer for the X-15, X-20, and XB-70 programs and the sole test parachutist on the X-20 escape system and pressure suit. As part of that work, the then Capt. Fulgham became one of only three USAF master balloonists testing rudimentary space suits of the time by taking balloons to the upper limits of the atmosphere. During one of those exercises conducted near Roswell, NM in May 1959 there was an accident in which his helmet was crushed and he sustained a head injury during landing. The resultant head swelling produced a rather startling physical appearance which was observed by the hospital personnel at Walker Air Force Base where he was taken emergently. In the official Air Force report, Roswell Report – Case Closed, it was concluded that the injured pilot Dan Fulgham was mistaken for “an alien” giving rise to the still vital controversy of the “Roswell Alien”. During the Vietnam War he flew 133 combined missions over North Vietnam, Cambodia and Laos piloting the F-4 Phantom. He participated in the famous mission “Operation Bolo” in which 7 MIG Russian fighter jets were downed in a single day over North Vietnam. He was shot down over the North China sea and subsequently received the Distinguished Flying Cross and Purple Heart. Later he served as the Air Force liaison investigating the USS Pueblo incident in January 1968.After the war he returned to obtain a Ph.D. in experimental psychology from Purdue University. This ultimately led to important work developing flight simulators while at Williams AFB in Arizona. Upon retirement from the USAF as a Colonel in 1978, he became General Manager of Technology, Inc. a small firm supporting the US Air Force in many Human Factor Studies, including High G effects on pilots. He began a third career at Southwest Research Institute in San Antonio where he served as Director of BioSciences and BioEngineering for 10 years. He retired from the Institute in 1998 to form his own company, International Pathfinders. In 2005 he folded his company into his wife’s company, Sense Technologies, LLC, where she was President and he was Vice President for Business Development and he delighted in describing his one sentence Job Description: “Take care of the President”.
