Got Lost?

He was a man who fought for this country. A man who soared the skies. As a naval aviator, it was his duty to fly and learn new technological developments. Born in Greencastle, Indiana on the 30^th of April, 1929. He has lived in the La Crescenta area most of his life. He is currently 74 years old and in good health. He went to the University of Colorado and at the age of 22, enlisted in the Navy. Although never had any thoughts of going to the military, his mentor was a navy pilot. He has a wife, one daughter, one son. After he got off active duty, he went to USC, received a degree in engineering, and went to work at Cal-Tech/JPL. And he was there for 31 years. Now that of course he’s retired, he has a great time with his fellow family and friends and hangs out at the VFW everyday.

I was in a very interesting time.

It was right at the transition from props, propeller aircraft, into jets, where navy was just getting their first jets. And uh…what they did was I was in a, what they call an AD Squadron and attack squadron, which was propeller plan. Marvelous airplane.

Most of our stuff that we had most of our equipment was hang over from WWII. The radio equipment, the um…what we called IFF (Identification Friend and Foe), the uh…where you get a code and when you crank it in there. All that stuff was just right out of WWII airplanes. Later, they started became very sophisticated. Both the radio equipment and the navigational equipment. The radio/navigational equipment we had again was right out of WWII later part of WWII. In fact we were just getting things just like OMNI, which is a directional thing. It really my first instrument flying I did um…something they called “Radio Range,” which was just again a hang over from WWII days and that’s where there would be a beam and a transmitting station in the center. And it can send out “Four Legs” they called them. And it can vary those into different directions and lock ‘em in there. And then when you’re down flying down, one of these legs if you’re right on that aim you hear a constant buzz. If you get off to one side, it’s an A, dahdah. If you get off to the other side, it’s an N, dahdit. But if you overlap those together, it makes a constant tone so that you know you’re on the beam which is the old on-the-beam type of statement. So that’s what we had originally. Then by the end of Korea, we started getting into the various newer types: the OMNI stations, which are OMNI directional, which means they can you can type in or code in where you want to go, and you can go any direction from that original station in the center and know you’re there you can have an instrument saying, I want to go two seven zero degrees, you crank at two seven zero degrees and you have an arrow and a needle, and if you’re on that two seven zero, that thing is right in the center if you want to go to two eight zero, then you just crank it a little bit ten degrees off then fly the airplane right back where the needle is in the center again.

The electronic technology was incredible. And then for the ten years after Korea that’s when all types of electronic stuff would come out: navigational systems, the weapons improved significantly, various types of ordnance improved, not only the guns, but especially the bombs and the things of that nature.

Just about everything they had especially when they were getting developed had some maybe some disadvantages but they were always a step forward in improvement.

Navigational systems as I’ve mentioned.

With the uh new miniature technology when they especially much later when we got the integrated circuits, did they do so much with the stuff. In the beginning navigational equipment was just that simple radio was equipped from that radio range. Ohh it was very complicating to fly, set up, and a particular station had fixed the leg they can set up so that they can come in a different orientation. But once they were locked in there and installed, they were always there. So you would be flying down this station and go out on the leg and then finally that beam get out of range and fade away and then you would have to pick up another one up here, tune in that radio and then try to make sure you’re on that beam to that one to fly in.

Oh so the navigation system back then you would get lost?

Oh yes. Very easy to get lost. The other bad thing about jets is we didn’t have much time. With propeller planes, you typically stay up and “hey where am I?” You look kinda “Oops, maybe I’ll try this and see if I can find it,” but with the jets we were very limited on our time especially the early jets. Like our typical flight was just about an hour and a half. I’ve had them longer than that but not really to go anywhere just to see and hang in the air and not use very much fuel at that time but our time in the air was very limited. And so once you got lost, you get into a lot of trouble and a hurry because you didn’t have much time.

Ohh yea, then they came up with the OMNI stations. OMNI directional. Those were the ones where you can dial in and get a station and you can dial it in and take any vector out of there it was also truer. It was with the low frequency the original range is they would get mulled up in bad weather. For instance, all of a sudden, “hey here comes a storm,” and all of sudden in effect disappear or be overpowered by static that’s a better way to put it. The omni’s were high frequency so they were typically were very dependable. So not only you had the advantage of you can look in on nearly any direction from a station you can set it that way and you can find the station you can in effect you can adjust the thing “Oh gee, I’m not sure where I am.” And tell that needle’s in the same in the middle. And it says that it has a to or from so it tells you if you’re going to or from it which is great. And you can sit there and when you tune the station and this thing the needle is in the center and you read down here “Oh yea that’s over here at one eight zero.” And we can turn there and get right into the station. So that was a tremendous advantage. Nowadays you know they have the GPS. That’s what I have in my plane now. The satellite equipment. So I can just come up with latitude and longitude. Right there right in front of me.

It tracts at least three satellites. There are a whole group of satellites up there. And typically it follows at least three if not more. Then now you can go ahead and tune in to it and when it clicks in it gets locked into those three it gets measuring the time difference between those this one this one and this one it’s incredible at 186,000 miles a second. And it can tell you within just a few feet of where you are. Isn’t that amazing? Both altitude and in position.

I keep going back to the uh…navigational equipment because that’s the thing that really the, ”saving grace” for the pilot.

Way before me, before WWII, they had the search lights. All the way across the country about every 100 miles, they had a big bright light up on a tower and a person would, they didn’t have the radio equipment then, they fly along here have a code like a Morse code identifier so you see a line there and you would see a red light it would flash. “oh yea I know what station that is.” So you fire over there and you pick up a compass heading “Now there’s gotta be another light over here some,” and you fire over there and you finally see that light hopefully. So that was the beginning. Then we went into the radio range and the omni and loran which was the navy since they gave you the latitude/longitude. Now that’s all being replaced by the satellite system. I have a satellite system for my plane, that is just the size of two packs of cigarettes. And it has more information in that thing. It has roads and mountains and everything in the entire United States is all stored in there.

In this one little unit. And half of that is the batteries. The actual truly the uh…simples and the display, which is the liquid, LCD, liquid crystal display um…that takes up just like one pack of cigarettes. It’s about the size of it. Has all that stuff in there. We can crank it in I can crank it in the entire United States and all types of information. And it’ll track and I can look down here and it’ll have a little tiny airplane and it goes, chchchch right along you can watch that “Oh! Here’s where I am.” Oh…what a lifesaver.

That was in the last I guess 10 or 15 years let me say. About 15 years ago we started to get into satellite stuff. The OMNI came out right after Korea. Nearly 50 years ago.

The carrier configuration when they put what they called the “Angle Deck.” That was the big thing for the Navy. Oh gosh that saved lives and made a lot easier. The navigational equipment today is incredible. I laugh every time I look at this little GP, this little GPS. It’s a toy to me.

Interviewed by Dennis Kim