Dick Taylor

   A Remembrance Photo Album

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I'm not sure when I first met Dick Taylor, but it was around 1980 that I began working with him seriously.  About 1983, I began working directly for Dick, a relationship that lasted several years.  After I moved on, we continued working together until we both retired, after which we remained as good friends.  As I was very active in both the AIAA and the Museum of Flight, we saw a lot of each other after working hours.  I knew his family as well as I knew him.

Dick was an iconic figure in aviation, and it was a special honor and privilege to work with him.  Although he could be a (very) challenging taskmaster, I learned a lot from him.  When he passed away on October 4 (2015), it was a shock despite his age (93.)  He was a guy who was always going to be there.  In any event, I immediately thought of a certain picture I had taken of him some years earlier, and which I told him was the best ever.  So I collected my photos of Dick into a little Remembrance Album, and I'll start off with "the picture." 

I sent this to Dick and told him this was the picture I would submit for his memorial some day.  It's a great picture for several reasons - first, it's a great picture of Dick.  Second, it's taken in the left seat of a 737, an airplane that he was seriously involved in as Director of Engineering.  And third - it's not just any 737 - it's the 737 Prototype - the Number One airplane.

The 737 was near and dear to his heart, as it was to mine - and, indeed, to many other people.  A success has many fathers, while a failure is an orphan.  Still, I regarded the airplane as my own - especially this individual airplane - as I'm sure he and Brien Wygle and so many others do.  You can read more about it on my web section here.

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Dick Taylor was (like myself) always mindful of the pioneers and patriarchs in our chosen field of aviation.  Clayton Scott, Scotty, was one of those individuals.  He soloed at Pearson Field in 1927, became Bill Boeing's personal pilot for 7 years, was the first flier to cross the Gulf of Alaska, and became a Boeing Test Pilot, flying all Boeing airplanes from the 247 through the 727.  After retirement, his flying activities continued unabated, including building and flying a replica of Boeing's first airplane for the company's 50th anniversary.  Sitting and talking with Scotty was sitting with a figure right out of the pages of aviation history.

       



   

Like Dick, Scotty seemed to go on forever, and one day Dick figured out that his good friend was really getting up there in years.  So, in typical Dick Taylor fashion, he took Scotty's legacy in the palm of his hand and made himself the keeper of the flame.  With Bill Jepson, he created a Scotty history book, and an outstanding video.  And, playing a bit with numbers, and perhaps fearing his friend might not make it, threw a big birthday party bash for Scotty's 100th Birthday.  Well, it was actually only Scotty's  99th Birthday - but to get around that little detail, Dick called it the beginning of his 100th Year!  Which it was.  Technically.

Well, Scotty enjoyed the celebration, so a year later he presented Dick with a (nice) dilemma - what to do the next year?  And so, Scotty got another big bash - a sort of second 100th Birthday party.  This one was for real. 


By this time, Scotty figured he had Dick really hooked on this birthday party business, so after another year rolled around and Scotty was still running on most cylinders, what was Dick to do?




Yup, yet another party for Scotty's 101st.  This time, Dick had to figure out how to outdo the bash the year before, and the bash the year before that.  And, of course, he did.  Another party, this time in a hangar at Scotty's home airport in Renton, complete with balloons and shuttle buses.  And - a dramatic statue of Scotty to be displayed on the Field, along with bronze historic plaques.


And then Dick outdid even his usual pull the rabbit out of the hat routines, when he unveiled the new name for Renton Municipal Airport - Clayton Scott Field.

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L-R Dick Taylor, Brien Wygle, Peter Morton, Bob Bogash and two more customer pilots.

   

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Later that year - another milestone - the 60th Anniversary of the First Flight of the B-47 - one of the greatest airplanes in the history of aviation.  The direct Matriarch of all the jetliners we have flying the skies today.  Dick played a key role as test pilot.








More about the B-47 in my websection here.

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One of my favorite Dick Taylor talks occurred in the Museum and I can't even remember the subject.  What I do remember, however, was that halfway through the pitch, he took of his suit jacket, claiming it was "hot",  then loosened his tie, and tossed it aside - like a burlesque queen.  Then he took off his shirt,....and then his pants!  Yikes!  It turns out he was wearing his business suit over his flight suit, and so gave us all a thrill - before ending it all in a great shot with his grand-daughter. Did it all with a straight face - the man should have been in vaudeville.


In July 2012, I organized a B-52 Celebration, encompassing 3 Anniversaries - the 60th Anniversary of the First Flight of the B-52 on April 15, 1952; the 50th Anniversary of the delivery of the last B-52 (of 744 built); and the 40th Anniversary of Operation Linebacker II,  that marked the end phase of the Viet Nam war.

  As part of that occasion, USAF sent a film crew and we conducted all day Video and Oral Histories of major players in the B-52 program. Afterwards, we took this group photo.


And so, there's my mini Dick Taylor scrapbook of pictures.  As I find myself, like the Frank Sinatra song says,  "in the Autumn of my years", I often think about my career, the things I've done, the places I've been.  But, especially, about the people I've known.  I've traveled so much in my career, I could never go back to all the places I've been.  And, I could never meet and work with the people I've been privileged to know over my career.  To not only know them, but to call them friends.  True pioneers and patriarchs in my chosen field of aviation.   And, indeed, world history.   People who truly have been there and done that.  They had The Right Stuff.

And, while others could, perhaps, retrace my journey's and re-visit those far-away places, no one will be able to visit again with those colleagues who have gone from our midst, with their knowledge and wisdom and incredible experiences.  People I could actually say were .... my friends.


Bob Bogash

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 On Oct 31 and Nov 1, 2015, Memorial Services were held for Dick at the Bellevue Prebyterian Church and the Museum of Flight.  The following remembrances were given out.

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 Dick Taylor, 93, piloted, designed postwar planes at Boeing


Obituary
Originally published October 15, 2015 at 12:33 pm 
Seattle Times

Dick Taylor, seen in 1945, was a spotter pilot during World War II. He later worked for Boeing. (Photo Courtesy of Taylor family)

A photo of Dick Taylor in 1952. (Photo Courtesy of Taylor family)

By Coral Garnick

Seattle Times business reporter

As a test pilot for the B-29 aerial-refueling tanker in the late 40s, Richard “Dick” Taylor became the world’s first boom operator. So it was only fitting that on Sept. 25, Mr. Taylor was at Paine Field to watch the first flight of the latest version, the KC-46.

Mr. Taylor, who died Oct. 4 at age 93 in his Capitol Hill home, made that Paine Field visit with his son Steve Taylor, who is the chief pilot of Boeing Flight Services.

Frank Shrontz, who was Boeing’s CEO while Mr. Taylor worked there, as well as a good friend, said in an interview that Mr. Taylor was an outstanding engineer and “was a great contributor to not only Boeing, but to the entire aerospace industry.”

Born in 1921 in Cincinnati, Mr. Taylor grew up in Indiana and graduated from Purdue University with a mechanical engineering degree in 1942. He was a spotter pilot in Europe during World War?II. Taking the advice of a Purdue professor, he moved to Seattle in 1946 to work for Boeing, said Priscilla Hickey, his daughter.

He joined Boeing as a flight-test engineer and quickly became one of its youngest test pilots. In addition to working on the B-29 tanker, he spent more than 2,000 hours test-flying the B-47 Stratojet — an important aircraft promising better speed and range than the straight-winged prop planes that were standard at the time. The B-47 was the first airplane built with wings swept back at an angle and with engines mounted below the wings in pods, Steve Taylor said.

“It was so far ahead of its time,” Mr. Taylor recalled in an oral history recorded by the Museum of Flight.

As Boeing’s director of engineering during development of the 737, Mr. Taylor earned the title “Father of the 737.” He also played a pivotal role in reducing the number of pilots in an airline cockpit from three to two. Mr. Taylor may be best known, however, for his work on extended-range twin-engine operations (ETOPS), which required convincing safety regulators to reduce the number of engines required on a plane flying over water from three or four to two. That effort also earned him the title “Father of ETOPS.”

“Today we can’t even imagine building an airplane that required three pilots or three engines, but when he was working those changes, that was really radical thinking,” Steve Taylor said.

“He fundamentally changed the way in which the industry designs airplanes and operates them,” said Peter Morton, a Boeing retiree who worked under Mr. Taylor for many years.

During his early career, Mr. Taylor moved between Seattle and Boeing’s operations in Wichita, Kan., but settled in Bellevue in the 1960s. He couldn’t have fit in better in Washington, as his three favorite things were planes, baseball and coffee, his daughter said. More recently, he walked from his Capitol Hill condo to Roy Street Coffee every day for a cup of black coffee and was a Mariners season-ticket holder.

The day Mr. Taylor died, he was headed to the Mariners’ last home game of the season, where he was going to be recognized in the team’s Salute to those who Serve. A video was shown at the game, and his daughter said Mr. Taylor “would have been so glad to know that the Mariners won their game and that he was part of a good finish to the season.”

 Mr. Taylor was on the board of trustees of the Museum of Flight for 44 years and was instrumental in refocusing its mission in the 1990s to include education. Museum CEO Doug King said Mr. Taylor felt it was just as important to inspire, motivate and educate young people as to collect and preserve history.

“You tend to look at people that age as only looking back and telling stories, but he was still looking forward,” King said.

Mr. Taylor retired from Boeing in 1991, but served as a consultant for another five years, helping with certification, design, safety and extended-range operations. His industry honors include the Distinguished Service Award from the Federal Aviation Administration in 1991 and being named an Elder Statesman of Aviation by the National Aeronautics Association in 1992.
 
His children remember the Taylor family had at least eight different planes over the years. Family vacations growing up started on his plane, and the family flew to places like the Grand Canyon, Yellowstone and Washington, D.C.

“I grew up in the back seat of the family airplane,” Steve Taylor said. “My first ride was at just a few weeks old.” (Steve Taylor said he himself learned to fly before he even had a driver’s license.)

While Mr. Taylor was in his 90s, he still owned a seven-seater Piper Aerostar (he holds several world-speed records). And while he hadn’t flown since last December, he was preparing: At the time of his death, the plane was in San Diego getting new instruments installed.

Mr. Taylor was preceded in death by his wife of 35 years, Mary McLaury Taylor, and his daughter and son-in-law, Martha and Mike Biggs. Besides his children Steve Taylor and Priscilla Hickey, he is survived by daughter Jane Wilson and son Mac Taylor; his brother, Ray Taylor, and sister, Sarah Jane Waitt; nine grandchildren and seven great-grandchildren.

The family is holding a memorial service at Bellevue Presbyterian Church at 1 p.m. Oct. 31. A separate celebration is scheduled at the Museum of Flight at 5 p.m. Nov. 1. In lieu of flowers, the family asks that donations be made to The Museum of Flight or Bellevue Presbyterian Church.
 

Coral Garnick: 206-464-2422 or cgarnick@seattletimes.com. On Twitter @coralgarnick

Copyright Seattle Times

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Sabra Gertsch is a writer who was collaborating with Dick to write his Autobiography.  She authored a terrific piece for the Huffington Post, which was here:

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/sabra-gertsch_b_8269478.html

This page is now a dead Link, so it is reproduced below.

Pilot in Command: Remembering an Aviator Who Changed the World  10/13/2015 09:42 am ET | Updated Oct 13, 2016 Sabra Gertsch Freelance, Emmy Award-winning journalist I waited for Mr. Taylor at our favorite coffee shop this morning, as I always do. I imagined his navy blue Seattle Mariners jacket, his straw fedora tilted upward as he stops at the corner to count the airplanes flying overhead. I imagined the wink in his right eye, his hands cutting the air like a maestro’s, his shirt pocket heavy with note cards that display his name: Richard W. Taylor. I imagined him ordering “super-duper oatmeal” and flirting with the pink-haired barista. I imagined his smile, his skin bright under the scribbles of old age. I imagined him telling another story. “Are you up for it?” he once asked me. “Because I want to draw you into my world. I need to tell you about how we put an airplane together, how we made it human.” I’m looking at our usual table. It’s on the opposite side of the coffee shop, next to the floor to ceiling windows, topped with a glass vase filled with artificial, purple tulips. They look so authentic we once tried to add water. That’s where he brought me into his world. I watched him reach back through time at that table, turning pages and pulling moments from rescued flight logs, his raw connection to the past. He was a WWII observation pilot with waves of dark Hollywood hair at that table, flying over a vulnerable loop in the Rhine River, dodging German anti-aircraft after the Battle of the Bulge. And when he delivered a message to two sisters in France, he discovered a war mystery that he would solve 50 years later. He stood with Charles Lindbergh on a ramp in Wichita looking at the contraption that would redefine strategic warfare and dominate the Cold War. It was called the Flying Boom, and he was the first to operate it. At our table, he perched in the B-29’s gutted gunner station, his face sealed to an oxygen mask, his knees in his ears, his left hand gripping the extension lever, and his right hand ready to guide the nozzle, connecting the boom to the airplane positioned behind him at 30,000 feet. The rugged experiment transformed aerial refueling. He believed the B-47 Stratojet was the most elegant machine he’d ever seen and insisted it was the crown jewel of the jet age. His fearless acrobatics trained the large jet to toss a nuclear bomb, and he logged more hours flying that swept-wing wonder than any other Boeing test pilot. On a winter day in 1952, he felt the grip of adrenaline and a six-strap ejection harness as the tandem cockpit nosed toward Earth, he pulled furiously at the controls as the jet plummeted to within a thousand feet of setting ablaze a swath of January-brown Wichita farmland. Dick Taylor, and the yellow checklist attached to his left thigh, survived to tell the story. He told me about the day he knocked on the Pentagon’s door in 1964 with the B-52’s destiny tucked under his arm. The roll of paper sketches proved that the bomber’s belly could be rigged with steel racks for explosives, securing the B-52’s place in history. He played golf with President Gerald Ford, sold airplanes to African dictator Robert Mugabe, and gave Mickey Mantle a lift. Flying with Mr. Taylor was one hell of a ride, even in those squeaky chairs at the coffee shop. Mr. Taylor died suddenly last week, and now everyone is talking because we knew a man who touched the sky and changed it for all of us. In whispers and disbelief, the news of his death flew to points around the world, from his home in Seattle’s Capitol Hill neighborhood to Boeing’s Paine Field to the Museum of Flight. It reached New Zealand, Incheon, Shanghai, Saudi Arabia, Nairobi, Southern France, Costa Rica, Boston, New York, Colorado and his hometown of Sheridan, Indiana. The news landed in a moment of silence at Safeco Field where his beloved sport of baseball paused to honor the name: Richard W. Taylor. Boeing President and CEO of Commercial Airplanes, Ray Conner, alerted the press because a visionary is dead. His heartbroken children composed an obituary, and news of his death summoned hundreds of condolences that celebrate his monumental past. “This is truly the passing of an era of statesman-like leadership by one of aviation’s most significant leaders. Ever.” Former Boeing Vice President Peter Morton wrote. From his alma mater, Purdue University’s Head of Aeronautics and Astronautics, Tom Shih, said, “Though Richard Taylor was a giant in aerospace engineering and in aviation, he was also one of the humblest and finest men that I know.” He was the aviator who unleashed twin-engine jets and sent them safely across continents and over oceans. They called this accomplishment Extended-Range Twin-Engine Operations, and history dubbed Dick Taylor “the father of ETOPS.” The explosion of new commercial airline routes and the global implementation of modern design and safety standards “began as a gleam in somebody’s eye —- I think it was Dick Taylor’s,” the Federal Aviation Administration’s Tony Broderick announced in 1989. “We were quite skeptical... but Dick was persistent... he kept coming back... and helped us see that it just might be possible.” He flew to the edges of an untouched future and defined them. Mr. Taylor fought years-long battles with perception and politics to achieve another innovation of modern flight: reducing the number of pilots in the cockpit to two. “He was the vital person in the dramatic decision to go from 3 crew to 2 crew that has changed commercial aviation,” wrote former Boeing Chairman and CEO Phil Condit. “I saw first hand the impact he had, and it cannot be overstated.” And when wind shear made devastating headlines, he worked with other masterminds to stop the phenomenon that claimed lives and jetliners. “Dick believed in technology and people working together to continuously improve the safety and efficiency of commercial airplane operations,” said Alan Mulally, former Boeing Executive Vice President renowned for his wind shear research. “We will always treasure Dick’s leadership, partnership and friendship.” Mr. Taylor was a member of what Peter Morton calls the elite club that served as “the conscience of The Boeing Company.” He says “people are alive today because of Dick Taylor.” As a tough and respected Boeing Executive, Mr. Taylor’s intense focus demanded answers to critical safety questions. The results protect every airline passenger. Every passenger. He was a 93-year old pathfinder who changed the world. He spent so much of his life storming into the unknown, he rarely worried about anything. His resolve often unnerved me. “I think I’ll die in an accident or because of natural causes,” he announced last year, an epiphany. “But not today!” He spoke of mortality the same way he had his shirts laundered: weekly, with starch. “You should be thankful I’m upright!” He said. “Hurry back. I’m O.L.D. Don’t ya know?” His text-message popped up on my phone. More recently, sipping lemonade and relaxed, as though he were delivering the weather forecast on a clear-blue day, “I think the end is a lot closer than you think it is.” He didn’t seem to care if time wouldn’t negotiate. He said he was at peace with his body, his soul, his God, and his legacy: 4 children, 9 grandchildren, and 7 great grandchildren. He said he was at peace with close friends. And not-so-close friends. My mind flips through our conversations, as if recalling them will reset Roy Street Coffee and Tea to a better day when his unusually long fingers were wrapped around a white mug and he sang “happy days are here again.” He talked about the heroes on his wall: Charles Lindbergh, Ed Wells, T Wilson, Bill Allen, and his pilot son, Steve. He asserted that teamwork achieves great things and one man can’t claim the credit. He confessed that the one word he should have used more was “love,” and he wouldn’t accept the word “hate” in any context. He recited the creed he lived by: “Have an opinion, but make sure you have the data to support it.” Mr. Taylor, I waited for you at our favorite coffee shop this morning. I didn’t know much about airplanes when I met you. But now I look up and see you there. You were right, airplanes are human. I am your enlightened passenger, humbled to be awakened to the thrill of the ride, and privileged to have known you, the Pilot in Command. Copyright Huffington Post

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Obit in JDA Journal

    http://jdasolutions.aero/blog/dick-taylor-aviation-icon/