drstress

I designed my first airplane in 1958 at ten-years-old. I grew up within the sound of the Allison Engine Company's test stands in Indianapolis. (This was the company that produced the V-1710 engines for the P-38, P-39, P-40, and original P-51.) I read in the local newspaper that Allison was doing conceptual design for a nuclear powered aircraft, so I sent a sketch to help them out. My small room was always full of model airplanes, both plastic and flyable balsa wood with doped paper skins. I have been sketching and designing airplanes ever since. I even worked for Allison's forty years later performing finite element analysis on the center lift fan for the F-35. Allison's had been bought by Rolls-Royce by then.

When I was a sophomore in high school, I started hanging around a mechanic involved in the racing world. He taught me about being a conscientious mechanic, while I was his gopher/shop boy. Also in high school, I was selected to work on the school's IBM accounting machines, so in 1966 I wrote my first computer programs. After graduating from high school, I became a crew member for an Indy 500 team. I was always on the nerdy side so I read all I could on engine and suspension design and engineering while also reading about the Mercury, Gemini, and Apollo space programs and fighters like the F-4.

What I really wanted was to be an engineer, so I enrolled at Purdue part time while I worked as an auto mechanic. After graduating from college, I worked for Ford in Dearborn for a bit. Then I went back to college for advanced degrees.

Regaining my original aircraft interest, I worked for the U.S. Navy doing aircraft modifications. After the Navy, I spent the next thirty years as a contract engineer specializing in structural and fatigue analysis for Martin, Lockheed (before Lockheed-Martin), Cessna, Boeing, Pratt&Whitney, GE, Allison's, Rohr, Orbital Science, General Dynamics and Sikorsky.

Everything is interesting or at least curious. I have worked on just about every type of "thing" that flies.

Ratings: Multi-engine, IFR, about 650 hours, but I haven't flown in awhile, I'm too old and its too expensive