Felix Logan Pitts

Felix Logan Pitts passed away peacefully following steadily declining health on November 4, 2022, at the age of 82 in Yorktown, Virginia. F
Felix was born to Felix Marion Pitts and Mary Logan Pitts in Birmingham, Alabama on January 14, 1940 later settling into the Virginia Peninsula community to serve a thirty-two-year career with the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) at their Langley Research Center in Hampton, Virginia. Felix was a proud graduate from Woodlawn High School in Birmingham before attending the University of Alabama where he studied Electrical Engineering and was a member of the Honorary Societies of Tau Beta Pi and Pi Mu Epsilon.
Felix met the love of his life at NASA, Barbara Ann Hixon, on a sailing trip with mutual friends to the Bahamas. They were married for fifty-one years, raised their two children Felix Hixon and Lillian Rebecca, and enjoyed a wonderful life.
Through the years, Felix enjoyed saltwater sport-fishing, cooking, and proudly discussing University of Alabama football wherever he went. Felix’s professional achievements included the NASA Medal of Exceptional Engineering Achievement, the H.J.E. Reid Award for the NASA Langley Research Center Outstanding Paper of the year: New Methods and Results for Quantification of Lightning – Aircraft Electrodynamics, and the Admiral Luis De Florez Flight Safety Award. His career is memorialized at the Wall of Honor at the Smithsonian Air & Space Museum in Dulles, Virginia: https://airandspace.si.edu/support/wall-of-honor/felix-l-pitts. He was most proud of his lightning research and the safety we all enjoy as we fly as a result.
After retiring from NASA, Felix pursued a quieter life closer to nature on their property just off the Poquoson River where he and Barbara enjoyed fishing, crabbing, gardening, the constant pursuit of the perfect smoked barbeque, and his NASA poker group.
Felix is survived by his wife, Barbara, sister, Suellen Herd, two children Felix Hixon Pitts (Rachel) and Lillian Pitts Robison (Thomas Lee), four grandchildren (Felix Ayres, Roxanne Lizabeth, Liddell Vance and Lincoln Thomas), and many nieces, nephews and cousins.
The family will receive friends on Saturday, November 19, 2022 in Yorkminster Presbyterian Church starting at 11:00 AM.
Donations in Felix’s memory may be made to the Perote Cemetery Association (c/o Sarah Hixon, 43 Hixon Ln, Banks, AL 36005) or Yorkminster Presbyterian Church (6218 George Washington Memorial Hwy, Grafton, VA 23692)