Summary

Retired U.S. Navy Lieutenant Commander and Weapons Systems Officer who occupied the rear seat of Commander David Fravor's F/A-18F Super Hornet during the November 14, 2004 Nimitz Tic Tac encounter. As Fravor's backseat crewmember during the intercept, Slaight had a direct unobstructed visual of the Tic Tac object and independently corroborated Fravor's account in congressional briefings and on the public record. His significance is specific: he places a second trained military observer in the same aircraft as the primary witness, making the encounter a two-person simultaneous observation under operationally demanding conditions rather than a single-observer event.

Roles

• -Lieutenant Commander, U.S. Navy (Ret.)
• -Weapons Systems Officer (WSO), VFA-41 Black Aces
• -Backseat Crew Member, F/A-18F Super Hornet — Nimitz Tic Tac Intercept (November 14, 2004)

Organizations

Education

• -U.S. Naval aviation training (specific institution not publicly disclosed)
• -Weapons Systems Officer qualification training

Early Career

• -Served as a Weapons Systems Officer (WSO) in the U.S. Navy, assigned to VFA-41 Black Aces — an elite F/A-18F Super Hornet strike fighter squadron homeported at NAS Lemoore, California
• -As a WSO, Slaight was responsible for navigation, weapons systems management, and sensor operation in the rear seat of the F/A-18F — one of the Navy's primary carrier-based strike aircraft
• -In November 2004, deployed with the USS Nimitz Carrier Strike Group as part of the air wing during pre-deployment work-up operations off the coast of Southern California

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