DIRECTOR OF OPERATIONS -- VITA

Born in Chicago, graduated from the Illinois Institute of Technology, joined Chance Vought Aircraft as a theoretical aerodynamicist. He took military leave from Vought to serve as a fighter pilot flying the F-84f and various versions of the F-100 as well as the B-47.  Returning to Vought, he joined the F-8 Crusader aerodynamics group, was on the design team that added high-lift boundary layer control (BLC) to the French Navy version of the F-8.  He was one of two designers who developed a unique scheme for the rail carriage of two huge Matra air-to-air missiles on the sides of the F-8/FN fuselage, allowing two of the 4-foot wingspan missiles to be launched over the entire F-8 flight envelope--a feat that the French were unable to duplicate on its family of Mirage fighters.  After 22 years with Vought, he left to join the F-16 flight controls design team at General Dynamics, Fort Worth division (GDFW).

At GDFW, he became a major contributor to the AFTI/F-16 DFCS program.  In the follow-on development of AFTI, the AFTI AMAS development (Automated Maneuvering Attack System), he devised the USAF award winning System-wide Integrity Management (SWIM) technology whereby dissimilar, but related, sensor systems could be used to attain extreme levels of overall reliability in automated combat operations. From SWIM came the development of the automated recovery system for loss-of-consciousness due to high g's, GLOC.  In 1987, the F-16/AFTI team received the Air Force Association's 1987 Theodor von Karman Award for the most outstanding achievement in science and engineering. Later, he became the Flight Controls System Engineering Manager on the Navy's A-12 program. Before he retired in 1994 he was engaged as a consultant on the F-16/VISTA Multi-Axis Thrust Vectoring (MATV) program as well as  on the IDF Taiwanese fighter program.  He retired  from Lockheed Martin to pursue creative fighter technologies at Arlington Splendor.