Four years later, he graduated with a Bachelor of Science degree and started a career in aviation which continues to this day.

Upon finishing naval flight training, he spent two years assigned to the carrier U.S.S. RANGER flying F-4’s over Vietnam and completing 175 combat missions. Creighton then attended Navy Test Pilot School and served as a project test pilot, where he was one of the first to fly the F-14 Tomcat. He joined the first operational F-14 fighter squadron in San Diego and was assigned two tours on the U.S.S. ENTERPRISE. One of his missions was to provide fighter cover for helicopters evacuating the US Embassy the night Saigon fell. Between tours Creighton served as a Top Gun instructor.

In 1978, Creighton was selected for the Astronaut Program. He spent 14 years working with NASA, and in his words, “was lucky enough to get to fly the Space Shuttle three times”. His first flight was aboard the Space Shuttle Discovery. He piloted the craft a mere six months before it met an untimely demise. After the disaster, Creighton served as an Astronaut representative helping NASA recover.

On subsequent shuttle missions, Creighton was Commander of the Atlantis and Discovery. On the second Discovery mission, his team would set a world altitude record for winged vehicles.

Creighton retired from the Navy with over 500 carrier landings and left NASA after orbiting the earth 290 times. He returned home to Seattle in 1992 and stayed retired for only six weeks before taking a job with Boeing their 737 Technical Pilot.