Joined:
December 2006
Posts: 6996
Location: Jet City | Wall Street put out a nice tribute/bio on Charlie...
Helicopter Designer and Guitar Hero
The Wall Street Journal 02/02/2011
Author: Stephen Miller
(Copyright (c) 2010, Dow Jones & Company, Inc.)
Charles Kaman introduced turbine engines that made helicopters fly higher and faster than ever before.
His innovations in propeller designs helped him to create round-backed Ovation guitars, among the most popular instruments made in the U.S.
Mr. Kaman, who died Monday at age 91, founded Kaman Corp. after his career as an aeronautical engineer stalled at United Aircraft Corp., where Igor Sikorsky's designs ruled. Mr. Kaman had different ideas that he hoped would put a helicopter in every garage.
"I believed that the skies were going to be black with helicopters," Mr. Kaman recalled in a 1996 interview with Design News.
The company produced the H-43 Huskies, which used Mr. Kaman's distinctive twin-rotor design in search and rescue operations during the Korean and Vietnam wars. An early version of the twin-rotor concept, which eliminated the need for a rear rotor, is on display in the Vertical Flight exhibition at the Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum.
Kaman Corp. went on to become a major supplier of aircraft parts such as ball bearings, with total annual sales of more than $1 billion currently.
Mr. Kaman grew up in Washington, D.C., where his father was an engineer who supervised the construction of the Supreme Court Building. He dreamed of becoming a pilot and competed in national model-glider competitions. When deafness in one ear kept him from pilot's school, he studied aeronautical engineering instead.
After graduating from Catholic University, Mr. Kaman worked as an engineer in the rotary-wing division of United Aircraft. During World War II, he helped design the R-4 and R-5 helicopters for the military.
Using a home-built calculator he dubbed the Aeronalyzer, Mr. Kaman came up with innovations in wing design and a dual-rotor configuration, neither of which interested Sikorsky. In 1945, Mr. Kaman started his own company, and within a few years sold two helicopters to the Navy.
In the early 1950s, Mr. Kaman started building helicopters with turbines instead of piston engines, an innovation that spread to nearly all other helicopter manufacturers, according to Rhett Flater, executive director of the American Helicopter Society.
Mr. Kaman also introduced remote-controlled helicopters, but they were little used. In recent years, Kaman Corp. has revived the concept and is currently producing remote-conrolled K-Max heavy-lifting helicopters for deployment in Afghanistan. Kaman also produced some of the first helicopter blades made from composite materials.
A guitar player who was good enough to have once played with Tommy Dorsey's orchestra, Mr. Kaman drew on his knowledge of acoustic vibrations and composite materials to design what became Ovation guitars.
The business was a good match for helicopters, because musical instruments tended to sell when helicopter sales were weak, according to Neal Keating, chief executive and chairman of Kaman Corp.
Satisfied clients included Carly Simon, Jimmy Page (a double-neck model) and Glen Campbell, who played his Ovation guitar on his TV show and lent his name to one model.
In his spare time, Mr. Kaman and his wife bred German Shepherds, concentrating on eliminating hip dysplasia. On land adjacent to his company's Bloomfield, Conn., campus, he created the Fidelco Guide Dog Foundation. Fidelco specializes in guide dogs for the blind, and says it places about 75 dogs annually with the disabled.
Demanding and involved in all aspects of his businesses, Mr. Kaman was known for waking up his employees at odd hours, demanding they come in to work. In the 1980s and 1990s, he led the design of the KMax,which he called the "aerial truck," because it can lift three tons.
He was wrapped up in the project when the American Helicopter Society was celebrating its 50th anniversary, in 1993. "We asked him to come
down, but he said he was too busy with his new machine," said Mr. Flater. "So we said, 'Charlie, everybody will think you're dead.' He came right down." |
Joined:
February 2003
Posts: 86
Location: northern virginia | Originally posted by AlanM:
You know, I was surprised at all the stories that either left out Ovation altogether, or gave it only the merest of passing mentions. Everyone spoke of the Aviation and Fidelco angles, but very little on the guitar side of things. I SO agree...I honeslty believe it only speaks to the true greatness of this individual, that only one part, only one facet of his magnificant life so full of achievements has imacted all of us here so profoundly. I’m pretty much at a loss for words to describe this feeling, but I know most here must be experiencing it when reading the notices in the media. |
Wall Street Recognizes Charlie
