My first job was in the US Air Force

 

My first job after graduating from Texas A&M University was as a Lieutenant in the US Air Force in Los Angeles, California at Los Angeles Air Force Base.

I was the headquarters engineer responsible for the recovery equipment in a top-secret program that is now declassified - to recover spy satellite film capsules using a fleet of C-130 aircraft and HH-53 helicopters based in Hawaii.

These USAF HH-53 helicopters and USAF naval ships were also responsible for recovering all the Mercury, Gemini and Apollo astronauts after their space capsule parachuted into the Pacific Ocean.

In the photo below - you can see a C-130 recovering a 'small' 200 pound test capsule, and a second photo recovering a 1000 pound test capsule suspended from a much larger parachute.



I encouraged the USAF to purchase a Tektronix 4051 Computer in 1977, soon after it was introduced and used it to develop programs to simplify and speed-up the process of analyzing high speed movie film of training of C-130 pilots recovering test capsule parachutes with recovery equipment deployed out the back of the aircraft.  

I also used the computer as a terminal to a Tektronix 8002 microprocessor development system to design a microcomputer replacement for the analog computer used to control the brakes on the winch system which brought the parachute up to the speed of the airplane without damaging the precious film payload.

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