“When I started my career, I learned many things from listening to more senior engineers. There are very few opportunities to hear about significant aerospace achievements directly from the men and women behind them. This is what I came to appreciate in my participation in the AIAA Niagara Frontier Section.”— Fassi Kafyeke, Engineering Fellow, Research Innovation and Collaboration, Bombardier, Dorval, Québec
Niagara Frontier Section member Theodore P. Wright, Founder Member and past president of the IAS and Honorary Fellow of AIAA, passes away at age 75. Wright served as director of the Aircraft Resources Control Board during World War II, Administrator of the Civil Aeronautics Board 1944–1948, and then president of Cornell Aeronautical Laboratory. His colleague William Sears wrote that Wright “received almost every honor bestowed in our profession.”
The Buffalo Evening News reports on a two-day workshop for unemployed aerospace professionals, jointly sponsored by the AIAA Niagara Frontier Section and the U.S. Labor Department. Section chair Joseph DiCamillo stressed the discussion-group format, designed “not to find jobs but to give participants the edge in getting a job.”
LtCol William “Pete” Knight and A. Scott Crossfield speak to the February and April Aero Club of Buffalo meetings, respectively. Both flew the X-15 — Knight to Mach 6.7. Crossfield was the first pilot to reach Mach 2.
William Gisel, president of Bell Aerosystems, presents the Niagara Frontier Section annual Aerospace Pioneer Award to William Smith of Bell, who over a 34-year career worked on the X-1, X-2, X-22, and various hovercraft before retiring as president of Bell Canada. The meeting is attended by Rep. Jack Kemp of New York’s 39th Congressional District.
Dr. John Powers, chief environmental scientist in the FAA Environmental Quality Office, speaks to the section on aircraft noise, warning that “taxpayer suits and possible curfews on night air operations face the aviation industry unless further reductions in aircraft noise are made.”
From January 28th to February 1st, Buffalo’s legendary “Blizzard of ’77” strands thousands at work, including past Niagara Frontier Section chair Mort Schorr and colleague Geoff Nixon at the Bell Aerospace plant in Niagara Falls. To pass the time they designed and folded paper airplanes — an experience that led them to publish three volumes of paper aircraft designs, eventually available in the Smithsonian Air and Space Museum and Air Force Museum shops.
Robert Saitta of Aerospatiale speaks on the future of the Concorde supersonic transport at a joint dinner meeting of the AIAA Niagara Frontier Section and IEEE Buffalo Section.
Dr. Richard Hallion, Curator of Science and Technology at the National Air and Space Museum, speaks to the Aero Club of Buffalo on “Antecedents of the Space Shuttle.” This begins a long friendship between Hallion and the Niagara Frontier Section — rooted in his senior thesis on the Bell X-1 and X-2 high-speed flight research program.