Natalie Crawford, Icon of USAF Analysis and Modernization, Dies at 86

Natalie Crawford, whose analysis helped shape and build Air Force modernization for decades, has died at 86.

Crawford, who joined RAND Corp. in 1964 and spent more than 60 years as an analyst and expert there, was an influential and instrumental voice in the development of almost every innovation pioneered over that time, from precision weapons to stealth.

Beginning in the 1970s, when she expanded her portfolio from weapons analysis to aircraft, she flew in Air Force jets, asking pilots to spare her no quarter as they demonstrated high-G maneuvers and combat tactics. The young combat pilots who introduced her to the F-4 were surprised to find an intellectually challenging and insightful analyst whose critical thinking skills went far beyond her single education credential: a bachelor’s degree in mathematics from UCLA.

“Natalie Crawford was an exceptional individual who made major contributions to national security because of her deep technical and operational knowledge of U.S. airpower,” said Jason Matheny, RAND’s president and CEO, in a company obituary. “She was dedicated to providing the Air Force with rigorous, objective, and timely research and was valued for her ability to ‘tell it like it is’ in a room full of top brass.”

Without knowing the details of the Air Force’s development work on the F-117, Crawford came to the conclusion independently that the Air Force needed a low-observable penetrating aircraft that could laser-designate targets deep behind adversaries’ lines. That story and many more are related in “Every Day is a School Day,” a book written by former Air Force historian Dick Anderegg that RAND published in 2017 to celebrate her half century with the firm.

Gen. Bob Russ, on the Air Staff and in charge of fighter requirements at the time, asked the director of Project AIR FORCE to weigh in on specifications for future fighters. Crawford led the analysis team, recalling later that the project was the “most fun and exciting project I ever worked [on] at RAND.”

Studying every aspect of performance, basing, sustainment, and acquisition, they concluded that it would be a better path to develop a fighter-bomber first, then an air superiority aircraft. Seven firms were competing for contracts, and most shared their own analyses with the RAND team. Crawford saw that the companies were focused on a fighter-bomber that could fly high and fast, but her team’s analysis indicated there was a better solution because high and fast planes would need to be survivable and carry too much in the way of weapons and sensors to overcome the physics necessary to fly at such brisk speeds and lofty attitudes.

Meeting with Ben Rich, director of Lockheed’s Skunk Works, she asked: “What am I missing; I can’t make high-and fast work!” Rich replied she wasn’t missing anything. “Natalie and her team pressed on and completed their work and briefed the Air Force on their solution, which was a medium-altitude, subsonic aircraft with an IIR sensor and laser designator that could deliver precision laser-guided bombs,” Anderegg wrote. Still concerned after the briefing, she again asked Rich what he thought. “He winked at me and said, ‘I think you got it just about right,’” she recalled. By then, Rich and Lockheed had already built the highly classified F-117.

“Natalie and her team had hit the nail on the head through the analysis of pure physics and operational requirements and an understanding of the tactical environment,” he wrote. “Furthermore, they reinforced the efficacy of a decision already made.”

Crawford was almost universally admired, both for her ability to think and analyze but also for penetrating questions, plainspokenness, and clear insight.

“Natalie Crawford was a national treasure,” said former Air Force Secretary Frank Kendall III, whose 50-year career in defense trailed Crawford’s by a decade or so. “Her leadership of Project Air Force helped steer the Air Force through the Cold War and into the future. I treasured her depth of knowledge, integrity and passion for sound objective analysis. Her example will always be an inspiration as the Air Force and Space Force confront new challenges. We will miss her, but her legacy is enduring and strong.”

Crawford’s many awards over the years include the U.S. Air Force Academy’s 2012 Thomas D. White National Defense Award for significant contributions to national security; AFA’s Lifetime Achievement Award for contributions to the advancement of aerospace science and technology; the Office of the Secretary of Defense Medal for Exceptional Public Service; a Lifetime Achievement Award from the National Defense Industrial Association’s Combat Survivability Division; the Department of the Air Force Decoration for Exceptional Civilian Service (twice, in 1995 and 2003), and the Air Force Analytic Community’s Lifetime Achievement Award, She also received the Lt. Gen. Glenn Kent Leadership Award, and the Vance R. Wanner Memorial Award from the Military Operations Research Society.

Eventually, she would also gain an advanced degree: In 2018 she was awarded an honorary Doctor of Public Policy from the Pardee RAND Graduate School.

Natalie Wilson Crawford was born in Indiana in 1939 and her parents farmed and later owned a dry cleaning business. She held jobs as a teenager, and moved to Southern California with her family as a high schooler, graduating from Santa Monica High School. There she excelled in math and became fascinated by problem-solving theory.

After graduating from UCLA, she sought a role with RAND, but failing to land one, landed a job with North American Aviation as a programmer analyst. After just a couple of years, she moved to RAND, and never left. She married mathematician and educator Robert C. Crawford in 1970, of whom she told Anderegg “he taught me to think.” Robert predeceased her, dying in 1994.

Her weapons expertise expanded into aircraft survivability and especially into defense suppression—attacks on automatic anti-aircraft (AAA) and SAM sites, both directly and electronically,” Anderegg wrote. “She was an avid participant of developing a way to collect data on weapons and estimate their effects, which … is still in use today. By the late 1970s, Natalie’s work on weapons, weapon effects, and aircraft survivability blended perfectly with her experiences with fighter operations, fighter pilots, and especially the Fighter Weapons School at Nellis, so that her expertise was valued well beyond RAND. “

Among her fans was retired Lt. Gen. David Deptula, now dean of AFA’s Mitchell Institute for Aerospace Studies, who recalled first meeting Crawford as a mid-grade officer in the Air Force doctrine division in the late 1980s. “She was highly respected then for her insights and her stature only grew,” he said. Her interest in aircraft effects dovetailed with Deptula’s devotion to effects-based operations, and his continued interest in cost-per-effect analysis as a means of determining how best to invest defense dollars.

“She truly had the best interests of the Air Force at the top of her mind all the time and that continued until the day she died,” Deptula said. “Few have that dedication and passion.”

Indeed, in one of Kendall’s last major projects as Secretary, he appointed a high-level expert panel to re-examine whether the Air Force needed to move forward with the Next-Generation Air Dominance fighter, a penetrating aircraft that could work in parallel with the B-21 bomber to fly deep into defended enemy airspace. Kendall appointed three former Air Force Chiefs of Staff, a former vice chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, a former undersecretary of Defense, and Crawford. The panel determined the aircraft should be built, and in March, the Air Force awarded a contract to Boeing to build the F-47. If the plane reaches production, it is possible Crawford’s lasting influence on Air Force combat aircraft could stretch deep into the 2050s or beyond.

In a video tribute to Crawford made in 2024, Maj. Molly Sexton, a student at the Air War College, described what it was like to meet Crawford as part of an elective course at Air University’s Air Command and Staff College. The course, dubbed Gathering of Eagles, gives students the opportunity to engage with, interview and recognize individuals who have distinguished themselves in service to the country.

“There are so many life lessons to be learned from Natalie as a person,” Sexton says on camera. “She’s done all these amazing things career-wise, right? She’s changed the face of weapons. She’s changed the face of survivability. She’s changed the airplanes that we fly. … What I didn’t expect to find is that the person is even more amazing than the accomplishments on paper. … She says she will never retire, because the Air Force is her family, and I think how she handles herself, her interpersonal relationships, how she thinks through a problem, how she integrates with her teams. Those are the things that people may never appreciate that I’m so glad I got to see firsthand.”