COMPUTER MEMORIES, Chapter 10

AIRPLANES AND MISSILES
A year or so later, after being “snowed in” during Chicago’s winter months, we moved to Fort Worth, Texas, where I worked for an Insurance Company. A year or so later we moved to Dallas, and I worked at Chance Vought Aircraft, using IBM EAM (Electric Accounting Machines) equipment at both locations. I remember some of my colleagues being upset with me, because I spent many evenings at the local IBM office, attending classes on various subjects. One man said (actually), “You damn Yankee, you’re just trying to get ahead of us local boys.” He was correct!

At Chance Vought Aircraft, I soon discovered (and was not too bashful to tell everyone who would listen) that I was the only person around who had experience both in a factory and in the IBM Room, so I was uniquely positioned as the person to help design the production control system for the F-4-U, F-7-U, and the F-8-U fighters, and the Regulus Missile systems.

I had the opportunity to create, with the help of others, a production control system using IBM cards and Electric Accounting Machines, before things we would today call a computer, even existed. In 1952-3, Chance Vought built 90 of the gull-winged F-4-U Corsair, famous from WW II days, for the French Navy to use in Vietnam. They also built the Regulus Missile System, and the F-7-U and F-8-U fighter jets.

For example, there was a “Rubber Press” that pressed sheets of metal down over a tool that was the shape of the part needed. There were four tables that fed into the Press, one after the other, and it was very important to have the metal, and the tools, at the right table at the right time, in order to make efficient use of this huge machine. That was just one of many, many machines that had to be scheduled for proper control of the production line.

As I remember, the production control procedure that I created in the IBM room was so complicated that I could not write a flow-chart with operating instructions, or explain it to anyone else at first. The only way to get the job done was for me to come to the office on Sunday, when no one else was there. Now I had plenty of table space to carefully pile groups of IBM cards, and the machines were available for me to go from one to the other, to prepare the reports. Everyone was very pleased with the result, and finally I managed to create instructions and flow charts that described the job to be done, so that others could do it.

Among other things, I became an expert in the IBM 101 Statistical sorter, and IBM brought people from other users of that equipment, and a couple of times brought me a written definition of a problem someone could not solve, and just for fun, I acted as the expert, and solved those problems. Of course, I became an expert in many other items of IBM equipment.