Convairiety, Volume 11, Number 20, Wednesday, October 1, 1958 Page: 3 of 8
This periodical is part of the collection entitled: Convair/General Dynamics Newsletters and was provided to The Portal to Texas History by the Lockheed Martin Aeronautics Company, Fort Worth.
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Wednesday, October I, 1958
CONVAIRIETY
Page 3
WET LANDINGS—Convair FW flight crewmen recently demon-
strated water landing techniques in Ridglea swimming pool. In top
photo, Val Prahl, test flight engineer, holds nose as he goes off
nigh board. Center: G. I. Davis, pilot, helps D. J. Mayhew, test
flight engineer, ashore. Below: H. A. Cornell explains underwater
breathing mechanism to H. T. Hargis, flight test engineer.
Flight Crewmen Dunked
In Wet Landing Practice
Thirty-one Convair Fort Worth
flight crewmen celebrated a late
“splash day” when they simu-
lated parachute jumps from the
high board of the Ridglea swim-
ming pool as a part of emer-
gency indoctrination.
“Half of all of those connected
with flight have made the jump,”
engineering test pilot G. I. Davis
said. “The others will probably
make it sometime in the near
future.”
The men were required to
jump from the high board fully
clad in B-58 “space suits.”
After hitting the water, each
was required to inflate his “Mae
West” life jacket, get out of his
parachute and crawl aboard a
one-man life raft.
The simulated parachute jump
was suggested by Davis who said
the exercise was more of an “in-
doctrination” program than a
test of the suits. Major purpose
was to train flight personnel how
to react in the event of a wet
landing.
Richard I. Gallagher, safety
service director of Tarrant Coun-
ty Red Cross, was on hand to
offer assistance for those who
might have been overly drenched.
Another phase of the session
required the same individuals to
use the B-58 Hustler’s oxygen
equipment under water. This
would enable them to breathe
under water while escaping from
a sinking plane.
Davis said the experience will
be valuable in case any of the
crewmen must bail out over
water.
Name of Missile Training Base
Changed, Cooke to Yandenberg
A delegation of Convair offi-
cials, headed by President J. V.
Naish, was expected to be on
hand Sunday (Oct. 5) for official
name changing ceremonies at the
Air Force’s new ballistic missile
training base.
Cooke Air Force Base, Califor-
nia, will be renamed for the late
Gen. Hoyt S. Vandenberg, IJSAF,
former Air Force chief of staff.
Raw Material
Test Facilities
To Be Centered
Plans to install physical and
chemical test facilities at the
Rose Canyon material building in
San Diego in a program extend-
ing through the next three years
have been announced by R. H.
Gilliland, manager of quality
control at Convair SD.
The new facilities, when com-
pleted, Gilliland said, will enable
quality control to examine incom-
ing raw materials in a one-stop
inspection process and determine
specification conformance of raw
materials shortly after they are
received.
Approximately 13,000 square
feet of area will be utilized to
house up-to-date equipment nec-
essary to accomplish chemical,
physical, spectrographic, metal-
lographic, adhesive and plastic
inspection. Also included will be
an X-ray inspection with a sup-
porting machine shop, heat treat
facility and office function.
Ultimate purpose of the new
facility will be to handle the en-
tire scope of inspection processes.
A study made by SD industrial
engineering pointed out that the
new facility would eliminate the
dividing and routing of chemical
and physical inspection tasks to
other departments. In the past
this has resulted in unnecessary
handling and transportation.
The study also showed that the
proposed Rose Canyon location
would allow receiving inspection
to complete tasks with minimum
time lapse from date materials
are received. Efficiency would be
increased, costs reduced, and
scheduling improved.
The three-year program will
be started next year with instal-
lation of chemical laboi-atory and
acid storage area. Physical labo-
ratories will also be set up next
year.
Scheduled for 1960 are spectro-
graphic and metallographic labs,
machine shop and plastics lab.
Construction plans for 1961 in-
clude heat treat and shop area,
X-ray lab, office and work con-
trol facilities.
Ceremonies will be held Sunday
afternoon with a banquet Sun-
day night.
The new ballistic missile train-
ing site, located on the coast
north of Santa Barbara, is cur-
rently undergoing an extensive
facelifting in addition to the
construction of new launching
sites.
Convair Astronautics currently
has a force of over 200 employees
at the base under Fenton Miller,
manager. They are there to assist
the Air Force in training its bal-
listic missile crews and in es-
tablishing the initial operational
capabilities of its ballistic mis-
sile arsenal, including the Con-
vair Atlas ICBM.
Known first as Camp Cooke
(in honor of Philip St. George
Cooke, writer, soldier and Indian
fighter), the base was built in
1942 and served as an armored
division training post. During
the Korean conflict, it was reac-
tivated as an infantry training
center.
Revisions For SD's
Phone Directory to
Be Mailed Out Soon
Revisions of the Convair San
Diego telephone directory will be
in the plant mail at the rate of
nearly 500 a day, starting Oct.
8, Robert I. Morse, manager of
office services, announced.
New revisions will be mailed in
three installments—San Diego,
General Office and functional sec-
tions. Complete distribution is ex-
pected by the first week in No-
vember.
Astronautics personnel located
in Bldg. 4 will be listed in the
San Diego section, Morse said.
Accuracy of the new phone book
is expected to be maintained for a
longer period of time than in the
past, Morse added. He said that
people changing locations will re-
tain their former numbers in all
cases where feasible.
No Bats in Belfry,
On Ceiling Instead
Mitzi Gerhardt never had a
belfry but she did have a bat.
Mitzi, a secretary in Paul
Benner’s office, Convair SD,
Plant 2, worked busily last
Monday morning until a visitor
walked in and asked her what
she was doing with a bat in the
office.
“Look up,” the visitor said.
Mitzi looked. The baby bat
on the ceiling looked back.
Mitzi moved, Janitors re-
moved the bat.
Giant Vacuum
Will Clean Out
Jet 880 Wings
A giant-sized vacuum sweeping
system is ready to go into action
in the 880 wing bucks area at
Convair SD.
The central stationary vacuum
system, first of its type to be
installed in a Convair produc-
tion area, will replace the factory
portable vacuums and will be
used to clean out 880 wing sec-
tions after they are completed.
The system was designed and
installed by Convair plant engi-
neering to fit the unit built by
the U. S. Hoffman Machine
Corp., N. Y., at an estimated cost
of $9,700 for equipment and in-
stallation.
Over 1,000 feet of 2-in. to 6-in.
lightweight steel tubing was
laid under the floor of the wing
buck area with 24 outlets for
hoses, four to each of the six
wing stations. The hoses, 26-ft. in
length, will reach to every section
of the area, said W. H. Marshall,
(Dept. 25) construction foi-eman.
Debris and metal will be sucked
into the huge receiving hopper of
500-gal. capacity and emptied
from the bottom into containers.
Usable material will be sorted out
later.
Only other central vacuum sys-
tem in the plant is a smaller type
installed in the computing labora-
tory.
BIG HOPPER—C. D. Saxon,
W. H. Marshall, and R. O. Servis
of Convair SD plant engineering
inspect layout of new central
vacuuming system at 880 wing
bucks. Giant hopper receives
debris vacuumed from wing sec-
tions.
SD MEN ATTEND
SESSIONS AT MIT
M. V. Clark, Convair SD safety
engineer, and Lou Beauchamp,
industrial hygienist, are in Bos-
ton, Mass., this week attending
a symposium on beryllium Sept.
30-Oct. 1 at the Massachusetts
Institute of Technology.
FREE AD — Hustler gets free
advertising every morning and
evening from top of Continental
National Bank building when
clock records 8:58 (which looks
like B-58).
Wandering Rattlers Pay With Their Lives,
Trapped by Guards Turned 'Snake-Napers'
Many Convair men draw un-
usual assignments in the course
of their work, but for sheer nov-
elty Convair Astronautics’ Syca-
more Canyon security detail
(Dept. 131) may take the cake.
They are responsible for
“snake-naping,” among other
things.
Sycamore Canyon test site is
situated in a wild, remote area
covered, for the most part, by
rocks and brush. Rattlesnakes
dwell in the secluded valleys and
hills.
The rattlers sometimes wander
into “populated” areas and have
been found on parking lots, be-
hind buildings and on paved
areas. One even climbed into the
motor section of a contractor’s
vehicle, causing a short circuit in
the electrical section.
Security responds to all calls
concerning snakes. Few are shot,
since there is a possibility of bul-
lets ricocheting.
Instead, they are disposed of
via a long pole equipped with a
wire noose on one end and a
handle on the other. The noose
is slipped over the snake’s head
and tightened.
Each of Sycamore’s radio-con-
trolled security vehicles is
equipped with a snake-catcher.
About 50 have been killed in the
past two years.
BUTTON BOARD —At top,
Dorothy Lowell of Astro's Syca-
more Canyon security office,
displays trophy board of rattles
taken from "good rattlers." Be-
low, S. I. Jorgenson, Sycamore
fireman, demonstrates snake-
catcher.
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General Dynamics Corporation. Convair Division. Convairiety, Volume 11, Number 20, Wednesday, October 1, 1958, periodical, October 1, 1958; Fort Worth, Texas. (https://texashistory.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metapth777461/m1/3/?q=12th%20Armored%20Memorial%20Museum: accessed April 19, 2024), University of North Texas Libraries, The Portal to Texas History, https://texashistory.unt.edu; crediting Lockheed Martin Aeronautics Company, Fort Worth.