People of Pantex: Scott Nelson
People of Pantex is a series that highlights what makes Pantexans unique when they are not at our plant, and how those activities help them contribute to the mission.
At just over 5,000 feet in the air, Scott Nelson radioed over the common traffic advisory frequency that he was circling back to land his plane at Tradewind Airport in Amarillo. It’s something he’s done hundreds of times as an adult, but his passion began its ascent decades earlier when he took his first flight at 5 years old.
“My uncle had flown his plane from Oklahoma to take us back to his house for the summer,” Nelson recalled. “My sister and I are walking out to meet him and I thought ‘my uncle must be a fighter pilot because look at this airplane he’s got.’ It turned out to be an old Cessna 206, but at the time he stepped out with the Tom Cruise sunglasses and — as kids — we thought he was a rock star.”
Nelson was instantly hooked. From that day on, he dedicated his life to flying and helping people. He began his career in law enforcement, became a deputy sheriff, a firefighter, and an EMT. All of that led him to Pantex where he’s worked for the past 26 years.
As the management self-assessment program manager, Nelson’s job at Pantex is similar to flying planes. Just like he does mandatory safety checks to make sure all systems are working properly before takeoff, at Pantex he oversees the program where managers and workers perform self-assessments to ensure proper readiness in the mission — so they can catch problems before they happen.
“When you’re flying there are all sorts of rules — including the laws of physics,” Nelson said. “You can’t cheat the laws of physics. If you don’t have enough air speed going over an airfoil, you’re going to crash. At Pantex, we have rules and procedures we follow, and if we don’t, something could happen.”
Nelson’s dad retired from the Navy and was also a pilot. He continued the legacy of patriotism his dad instilled in him at a young age sitting in the co-pilot seat. One way he did that was by shuttling veterans around the United States for their medical appointments. Nelson is proud to have helped people who served our country and said he enjoyed going to new places every day.
“My family got a contract with the Veterans Administration system supplying the VA with air ambulances for veterans. We flew them all over the United States for surgeries and things like that,” Nelson said. “Back then, each individual VA had a different specialty, so you would pick up veterans at that hospital and fly them to Cheyenne, Wyoming, New York, or wherever for the next surgery they needed. That had me flying on an everyday basis.”
One day Nelson and his dad decided to take their hobby a step further and purchase, restore, and fly old wartime aircraft.
“We said ‘we should get a WWII airplane and go play with that,’” Nelson said. “So, we went and found an old UC-45J. It’s a 1939 model from the Navy and it’s an old photo reconnaissance aircraft that flew throughout the Pacific theater. We restored it back to its original condition and ended up selling it to a museum up in Chicago.”
It didn’t stop there. Nelson and his father’s passion took off faster than the aircraft they were rebuilding.
“That kind of morphed into a ‘hey why don’t we become fighter pilots,’” Nelson said. “So, we started looking at how we could get into a fighter jet. We got into the MiG-15 and then a little later we got into the MiG-17. The MiG-15 was the Korean War era. The MiG-17 was Vietnam era.”
Even though flying is now just a hobby, Nelson continues to give back to others in the air.
“One of the exciting things we do is Uncle Scott’s Christmas Light flights,” Nelson said. “We take kids up in an airplane at night and fly about 1000 feet over Amarillo. We fly circles and let them see the Christmas lights from the sky and say ‘this is what Santa sees as he comes in to land on your roof.’ We’ve had everything from kids ages 3 to 18 looking out that window with their nose pressed against the glass of the airplane just going ‘oooh’ and ‘ahh.’ It’s very rewarding to give a kid their first chance to go flying.”
Nelson is still taking flight and inspiring the next generation of potential pilots or aircraft enthusiasts, just like when he took his first ride in the sky more than five decades prior. To hear more about Scott’s love of flying – and giving back – watch his People of Pantex video here.