Analytical, Imaginary and Real

[2ndsegment]

When I first opened my mind to where I was in 1965, I had been an office mate of Don Brimley who was a friend of Don Douglas Jr. He spent most of his days working out reliability predictions for rockets and puzzling about life predictions for reciprocating engine, propeller equipped large transports and helicopters. The media was all into Robert McNamara, the Secretary of Defense and how he could now quickly make new systems very cheaply with developments in microminiaturization in Avionics and turbofan engines. The examples most focused on were the F-111 and the A-7. The A-7 had been known as the VAL the year before I arrived at Douglas. By the time I arrived, the joint view was becoming frayed as the Air Force version was overweight for intended runways and the Navy version of the F-111 was overweight even with a new engine that was going into what would be called the FX. How could this happen? Mostly, because of a desire for much longer range radars with bigger antennas the nose of the aircraft had to grow. Even today, folks remind me of steps along the path to complete the McNamara era hope.

You should not be surprised then that one of the things I sought out in EAA when I came was how flat panels in the cockpits and GPS navigation would combine with RoTax engines to free up the line between VFR and IFR in general aviation. Carbon fiber fuselage and wings? Supersonic using hexcel sandwiches? It's over 20 years since I stopped buying Kitplanes on news stands on travel with my parents. They both are gone. I needed to do whatever I was going to do in July of this year at Osh Kosh. Now Windows 11 is in the way of even flying common simulation.