Along the way, he did ruffle a few feathers. His long-time friend Tom Christie remembers one meeting Myers participated in that got “a little heated.” While working to develop the Maverick missile in the mid-1970s, designed to be used against Soviet ground vehicles on the plains of Europe, a meeting was called to decide where to conduct a crucial test. The Air Force wanted to conduct the test at Fort Polk, Louisiana. Myers thought that was a terrible idea because the terrain there didn’t replicate the European environment in which the missile was expected to operate. This disagreement quickly escalated, and before most people in the room realized what was happening, Myers and Air Force Major General Bobby Bond were on their feet with their jackets off in preparation for a fist fight. The two were restrained before punches were thrown. “He could get passionate during these meetings!” Christie said.

Myers himself acknowledged that many people in the services and the defense industry considered him to be, in his own words, “a pain in the ass.” He attributed this to a desire to challenge the conventional wisdom and question the way business was being done.

“You’ve got to be free to think about things outside your normal envelope. I haven’t had a normal envelope. It’s the nature of my life,” he said.

The Virginia Aeronautical Historical Society inducted Chuck Myers into its Hall of Fame in 1999.

He and his wife Sallie split their time during his later years between their home in Florida and his beloved 600 acre “Flying M Stock Farm” near Gordonsville, Virginia.

Chuck Myers will be laid to rest at Culpeper National Cemetery on June 17, 2016.

This article first appeared on the at Strauss Military Reform Project at the Project on Government Oversight

Image: Lockheed Martin