Everybody in the world soaring community knows the name, Richard H. (Dick) Johnson. However, many visitors to this web site may not know the name nor his reputation, achievements or qualifications for performing flight test evaluations. The following is presented to introduce Dick Johnson to you:

Beginnings
Dick is a lifelong pilot who first trained and soloed in a Northrup primary glider during 1938 at age 15. He's not sure that his mother knew what he was doing! Dick received a private glider license in 1940, and a commercial glider license in 1941. He was a civilian flight instructor for the Army Air Corps Basic Glider Training School at 29 Palms, CA for 14 months at the beginning of WWII. Two 6-hour shifts were flown each day, and two additional 6-hour shifts were flown each night, 7 days per week. Dick received a commercial airplane pilot license during 1942, and was a copilot with Pan American Pacific Division for 5 years.

Education
Dick returned to engineering schooling in 1947, and received a BS in Aero Engineering from Mississippi State University in 1952, and an MS in Aero Engineering from Stanford University in 1953.

Professional Career
Dick has worked as an aerodynamicist in the aircraft and missile industry for 42 years, and is still employed by Raytheon on a part time basis. While working at Texas Instruments, Dick was instrumental in developing laser guidance systems for missles and bombs. This is reported in TI demonstrates laser guidance system for bombs as follows:

"Dick Johnson, regarded as one of the country’s premier aeronautical engineers, returned from an international soaring competition in Yugoslavia and began retooling the proposal Word and Penisten had developed. While evaluating various ideas on an analog computer, he began defining ways for TI to place a guidance system on a missile with fins. Johnson, along with engineer Ron Hirsch, devised a unique floating head, a so-called “birdie head,” to house the seeker. Their approach enabled the bomb to stay fixed on the laser-designated spot without the use of stabilization gyros or input from the launch craft. The birdie head directed the bomb precisely toward its target."

"The seeker was simple. It was low cost. And it gave TI the potential of providing the Air Force with test hardware in a mere 60 days after receiving the $99,000 study contract."

"Because of the tight, 60-day deadline, however, Johnson did not have time to conduct full up-wind tunnel modeling, so he improvised, using his own lathe to machine a one-sixteenth-inch scale model of the precision-guided bombs. He then dropped them in a swimming pool to establish critical centers of pressure."

Soaring
Dick has competed in many National Gliding Contests since 1940, and is still competing today. He won the US Nationals 11 times; first in 1950 and last in 1985. He also set a world gliding distance record in 1951 with a flight from Odessa, TX to Salina, KA (535 miles), a record that held for 12 years.

Jim Hendrix
Oxford Aero Equipment