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Author Topic: Found this photo the other day...brings back so many memories  (Read 4022 times)

Offline Shultzie

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Found this photo the other day...brings back so many memories
« on: February 11, 2016, 10:17:22 AM »
During my first years in the 70's I met these two amazingly gifted long retired Boeing Wind Tunnel model makers.
Phil Dickert and Lou Proctor shown working long overtime hours to prepare this model for wind tunnel testing.

My wife and I have been trying to go through all our old boxes of memories of our past and....
 WOW!!
I found this  old photo of Phil and Lou in a box of photos that I brought home from Boeing way back in 2004! Bye the way Phil passed in 2004?
Maybe helped me think about retiring. Phil loved climbing snow covered mountains etc..and was an avid backpacker. 

Phil was hired waaay back in 1920's. Long gone guys...but still remember them from the early 60s out on our flying field in Lakewood Wa.
Lou Proctor his co-worker...so many of us model flyers enjoyed  Lou's friendship and guidance
Don Shultz

Offline Ted Fancher

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Re: Found this photo the other day...brings back so many memories
« Reply #1 on: March 09, 2016, 08:06:29 PM »
What a great picture, Don!  I've played golf with a couple of guys lately even older than me who were involved in aircraft development back in the days before computers and nerds.  Even as late as the immediate post war years they were still apt to utilize models to test the value of thoughtfully derived but unproven innovations.  Last guy was talking about some remotely piloted vehicles that he was working on in the late '40s and a local model flier with whom I was a bit acquainted, Gary Korpi, who built models utilizing ducted fan technology and wondering if it could possibly enhance the performance of conventional propellers (pushers in the case of their experiments).  Pretty much every modern jet uses the outgrowth of that modeling refined technology to enhance the efficiency of jet engine compressors.  An idea, a WAG and a TLAR test vehicle that wouldn't likely kill anyone wasn't an altogether bad start for the technology that allows us to span oceans and continents...frequently on the same flight.

Ted

Offline Serge_Krauss

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Re: Found this photo the other day...brings back so many memories
« Reply #2 on: March 11, 2016, 09:24:35 AM »
I greatly admire the old NACA and NASA researchers. Some of their reports are real literature, as well as being well conceived. Their research techniques were so thorough that when things like tunnel wall interference were found to affect seemingly remotely related parameters, they just jumped in and found corrections. Their techniques in some instances had to be conceived mathematically from scratch and translated into methods for handling data and creating tools for others to use. Computers were a thing of the far future, and their techniques were made transparent to all. I've used them often for my personal projects and to satisfy curiosity about things they probably didn't consider. Those model makers had to be fine workers to achieve the accuracy and finish necessary for their tasks. I suppose I'm solidifying my nerd-ish status, but I have spent some really exciting and happy times in old library stacks with these guys' works. 'very special people working in exciting, hands-on times. The picture shows a lot of that, and I'm sure the memories are very special for you.

Offline Les McDonald

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Re: Found this photo the other day...brings back so many memories
« Reply #3 on: March 15, 2016, 08:26:32 AM »
Would that be the same "Lou Proctor" that created the very cool antique RC kits?
I see people my age out there climbing mountains and zip lining and here I am feeling good about myself because I got my leg through my underwear without losing my balance

Offline Shultzie

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Re: Found this photo the other day...brings back so many memories
« Reply #4 on: March 15, 2016, 05:03:41 PM »
Would that be the same "Lou Proctor" that created the very cool antique RC kits?
Yes!
He and a few other retired Boeing Wind tunnel modelers where also involved...
We both need to Google him up....he was into everything that "Hathwings!" :)

 
Don Shultz


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