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"930711.DFC" (4815 bytes) was created on 07-11-93
11-Jul-93 Daily File Collection
These files were added or updated between 10-Jul-93 at 21:00:00 {Central}
and 11-Jul-93 at 21:00:10.
=--=--=START=--=--= NASA Spacelink File Name:930709A.REL
7/9/93: FRED WEICK -- GREAT AMERICAN AVIATION PIONEER DIES AT 93
H. Keith Henry
July 9, 1993
Craig E. Murden
RELEASE NO. 93-50a
One of the nation's earliest aviation pioneers -- airmail pilot,
research engineer, aircraft designer -- is dead at 93. Fred Weick, whose
genius touched virtually every aeronautical discipline in a career which
spanned a half century, died July 8 in Vero Beach, Fla.
Weick, a contemporary of aviation legends Charles Lindbergh and Amelia
Earhart, did not receive the same attention as his more glamorous colleagues
yet the contributions he brought to the country's struggling aircraft industry
arguably outstripped any of his peers.
One of the first university graduates to apply his degree to a career
in aeronautics, Weick was also one of the first engineers hired by the original
U.S. Air Mail Service. His efforts in the early 1920s to establish emergency
fields for night-flying mail pilots were a pioneering challenge of the first
order.
In advancing aeronautical technology, he helped design the first wind
tunnel devoted to full-scale propeller research and wrote a textbook on
propeller design now considered a classic. In that period Weick worked for
NASA's predecessor organization, the National Advisory Committee for
Aeronautics (NACA) at its Langley Aeronautical Laboratory, Hampton, Va. This,
too, was a pioneering endeavor as the Langley facility was the very first of
its kind. (Note: NACA is pronounced "EN -AY-CEE-AY" not "nacka.")
It was also at Langley that Weick reached another pioneering plateau.
He headed the development of streamlined, low-drag engine cowling technology
which was to advance aircraft performance dramatically. The NACA cowling first
revolutionized civil air transport by making aircraft faster and more
profitable. It also found application on the bombers and fighters which played
a prominent role in the air battles over Europe and the Pacific during World
War II.
For this engineering breakthrough, he won the prestigious Collier
Trophy for NACA in 1929. Another effect of his engineering versatility was the
increasing reputation for excellence in aeronautical research which NACA earned
among its supporters in Congress. Modest funding for NACA's Langley
Aeronautical Laboratory was sustained through the lean Depression years thanks,
in part, to his work.
Weick's passion for safety was evident when he built an experimental
airplane in the early 1930's aimed at making flying as easy and safe as driving
the family auto. In addition to the integrated controls for ease of flying, he
incorporated the tricycle landing gear arrangement which is now the standard
for virtually all the world's aircraft including the space shuttle.
Later in the decade, he improved on that design with the now famous
Ercoupe, the two-seat, all-metal, low-wing aircraft which was so easy and safe
to fly that many students mastered it in five hours or less. Half of the 6,000
Ercoupes built are still flying today, a tribute to Weick's engineering
foresight.
Weick's prevailing goal was to make aviation directly accessible to
middle-class Americans. His work with Piper and Cessna aircraft companies set
safety standards of lasting benefit to both the agricultural airplane (crop
duster) and general aviation industries.
His own words characterize this remarkable aviation pioneer's
dedication to that pursuit: "I feel very fortunate to have been alive
throughout the early ventures of atmospheric flight and to have been one of the
multitude working to further them. My activities in aeronautics have enriched
my life greatly. It gives me satisfaction to find that many of the
improvements that we worked on more than half a century ago are still in
general use."
Services will be held Sunday, July 11, 3 p.m. at the First Presbyterian
Church in Vero Beach, Fla. Weick requested that donations, in lieu of flowers,
be sent to the Fred E. Weick Scholarship Fund, Embry Riddle Aeronautical
University, Daytona Beach, Fla. 32114-3900.
Weick is survived by his 3 children, Donald V. Weick of Camden, S.C.,
Mrs. Elizabeth J. Weick of Greenbelt, Md., and Richard F. Weick of London,
Ontario, Canada; 9 grandchildren, 11 great grandchildren, 2 great great
grandchildren, and 2 brothers, Arthur Weick of Winterhaven, Fla. and George
Weick of Ft. Lauderdale, Fla.
- End -
Source:NASA Spacelink Modem:205-895-0028 Internet:192.149.89.61
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