Historic endeavors of Edwin Harvey
All my life has had to do with military service in some fashion. In 1942 my father was attending Iowa State University studying Civil Engineering. He was in the second year of a “semester in the classroom and a semester in the field” course of study, building a bridge in Kearney, Nebraska, when he realized that he would probably be drafted when he return to Ames in January. He left my mother in Kearney, rode the bus to Fort Omaha and enlisted in the Army Air Corps. A neighbor took my mother to the hospital and I was born an Air Force brat. By virtue of his college time, dad was selected for Aviation Cadets where he did so well that he earned a slot in bombardier school. Although fully qualified for pilot training, he was told that he was so good with numbers that he would be a great navigator and bombardier, after all almost anyone could be taught to land an airplane. He flew 30 missions in a B-24, the last half as lead bombardier.
In the late ‘50s our family ended up returning to Nebraska where dad was assigned to Strategic Command Headquarters at Offutt AFB. I had visited every state except Washington and Alaska, and lived in eight of them and Guam. Our high school was a two story brick building on the northwest corner of a two block main street in Bellevue. As a new sophomore, I thought playing on the basketball team would accelerate my acceptance into the teenage community. At the end of the second week of tryout practice I made my first dribble lay-up, drawing a standing ovation from the girls in my typing class who were watching practice. I avoided the cut by electing a different approach. I asked Head Coach James if he could use another Student Manager, and I spent the remainder of high school dealing with the peripheral details of football, basketball, wrestling and track. I worked for Art Petersen’s father on their farm, was in the Civil Air Patrol and the Boy Scouts, where, after earning Eagle Scout, I got to spend two fabulous weeks at Philmont Scout Ranch in New Mexico. I went to class with Jack and Mike Ryan (’65), and lost an election for Student Body President to Brett Dula.
I successfully completed the application process for admission to the Air Force Academy, but ended up on the Presidential Alternate list. I followed my father, and enrolled in Iowa State University. I completed the placement exams, met my roommate and was waiting to go to Ames, when I received a telephone call from Representative Cunningham’s office. She said that the congressman’s candidate had withdrawn and asked if I still wanted to attend the Air Force Academy. The next week my mother and father dropped me off at the base of the ramp.
The Academy Journey
The basic military performance concepts I had learned in scouting and the CAP barely helped as I struggled through Doolie year. Since I had three years experience as a student manager, I entered the tryout program for football manager. As we were carrying huge heavy bags of equipment out to the practice field, one of the equipment technicians drove by in an empty utility cart. Later I asked him why we carried the bags out when he could have hauled them in the cart. I was cut, so I found Coach Spear and asked if I could be a basketball manager. The season went from October to March, the balls are light, and it was warm in the gym. After a course in digital computers, I wrote a program to keep track of the basketball players’ statistics. Although it generated some competition between the players, we all felt that it helped everyone do better in the games.My mother had major heart surgery in December and had asked for me to be there. At the meal before I departed, my Flight Commander pointed out a gravy bomb and told me to send my blouse to the cleaners. Failing to ask my roommate to do it for me, I had to wear the same blouse to dinner upon my return a week later. The Form 10 read “Failure to obey a specific verbal order.” February was not a good month to spend 40 hours on the tour pad. I seemed to have a hard time getting back from ODPs on time and got to spend a lot of time serving confinements. I did however, manage to clean up my act and made the Superintendent’s List the last semester.
My parents were late in making reservations for Parents Weekend, but finally found a basement apartment in Monument that would not be occupied until school started a week later. Mr. Alfred and Ms Jean Snyder had three children, Sally 14, Butch 8 and Jerry 6. Sally was very cute and rode a big horse bare back. She had a crush on Tim Westover who among others accompanied me on a dining privilege with me. My folks stayed in touch with the Snyders and convinced Sally to ask me to her Junior Prom. After several movie dates with her being chauffeured to Arnold Hall by her father, I took my only ODP earned by being on the Deans List, and joined them after the parade. About 1600 I was changing into a Mess Dress borrowed from my element leader when it began to snow. Snow on May 12th? And snow it did. The phone rang around 1700 with the news that the Prom was postponed two weeks. Since we were already dressed, Mr. Snyder suggested we go to town anyway for dinner. At the North Gate, it became obvious that the snow was going to be real bad, and I was dropped off around 1800. Sally and her parents were not able to get up a hill to their house and ended up walking the last mile through the snow in their formal attire. We dated through church privileges 3rd class year, got engaged in February 2nd class year, and married in the Little Log Church in Palmer Lake on June 6th.
I was a flight commander first semester and Cadet First Class second semester until Vince Hurley moved up to command the squadron. I was then selected to be the XO. That was going to be great, because I would get to lead the squadron in the Graduation Parade. We could not believe the fog, zero zero. We could barely see Third Squadron, and the families only heard the commands and the swoosh of footsteps in the wet grass. I think it was Leif Erickson that was with me after dismissal when we ducked into the southeast stairwell, took off our clothes and walked up stairs. We were not escorted to the Air Gardens since it looked as though we had already been in. That disappointed my family who wanted to film my dunking.
The Air Force Life
After a brief honeymoon we settled into a 30-foot square apartment above a garage off an alley in Enid, Oklahoma. I drew number 69 in our tweet squadron and of course the joker that ordered our hats had it embroidered sideways. Speedy 69 was at the element leader’s table with Joe Griffith, and ended up flying with the ground school and staff instructors. I did manage to be the first to solo, and the first to take the contact check ride. I had briefed the ride, preflighted the airplane and was strapped in waiting for the check pilot. A contract maintenance guy was walking down the flightline opening the front right panel of each airplane and checking something. When he closed my panel he evidently didn’t close a latch all the way. The check pilot saw it and closed the latch. I had busted the checkride before starting engines. I did get an 83 raw score, but that wasn’t good enough. After 3 more flights I took a progress ride with our Flight Commander. It was a stormy afternoon and he spent the ride getting everyone back on the ground. My elimination ride was with the Squadron Operations Officer, Major Ross. I owe my flying career to Joe Griffith who spent endless hours with me going over the events in the contact check ride. I told Major Ross that this was the most important event in my life, and I wanted to brief this ride and show him I could fly the tweet. It was a virtually perfect flight so I survived elimination. I was third in the class at graduation. Joe took the F-4, the number two had a new baby in the family and took PIT, and I got the F-105. One of the lasting documents from ground school was a career plan. Although I seldom found it in my papers through my career, it is amazing how close it followed my visionary plan.We were the next to the last class at Nellis AFB, Las Vegas, Nevada to go through the complete Combat Crew Training School before it was moved to McConnell AFB in Wichita, Kansas as a Replacement Training Unit. We qualified in all the nuclear weapons carried by the Thud and qualified in under the bag nuclear weapons delivery. To fix a problem the Thud was having on takeoff, it would catch fire, blow up and go thud, an aft section ventilation system was installed which generated drag. The planes were also painted camouflage, which also was drag. I took my final under the bag back seat check ride in a shinny silver thud with no “poopy ears.” It was a cold clear February morning. I successfully calibrated the terrain following radar, navigated to the target and was on the run in at 7500 feet. I had hit the Initial Point five seconds late, so I jammed the throttle to 100% and focused on hitting the target. The check pilot said, “There is a farm house up here.” I rolled the antenna tilt down and flooded the scope with gain. “I can’t make out a farm house.” He says “I don’t want you to paint it, slow down.” I looked at the Mach meter and I was doing 1.05M. What an airplane, supersonic in military power in level flight. Can’t get much better. That is of course, until someone is shooting at you.
My first assignment of course was Korat, Thailand. I left my pregnant bride Sally with her mother living in the basement apartment where I met her 5 ½ years earlier. Karl Richter was eager to fly and wrangled a slot on a ferry mission and flew a thud to Korat. The other eight of us marshaled at Travis in early April 1966 and flew to Clark AB, Philippines in a DC-8. We arrived on a Sunday afternoon and sat down to a dinner and floorshow at the o’club. Several black Russians later we found our way to the hooch and crashed. Monday morning we were to report to Jungle Survival School. I was elected to call and get directions, only to learn that it started at 0700 and since we were late, we would have to wait until next week. Oh my, what will we do? After completing the school and recovering from wounds for several days, we realized that to get the $500 tax exemption for April we would have to land at Tan Son Nhat, South Vietnam before midnight on the 30th. We managed to get on a Southern Air Transport 727 that stopped there at 2230. While visiting with the flight attendants, we learned that the best hotel to stay at was the Princess, and if we grabbed our bags quickly, we could ride the crew bus with them. The next afternoon, I was detailed to take a copy of everyone’s orders and go to the Pax Terminal at Don Muang AB and book us a flight to Korat. I learned that a C-130 made a round robin flight to Korat, Ubon, Nakhon Phanom, Udorn, Takhli and returned to Don Muang. The next day it would travel the circuit the opposite direction. Tomorrow’s flight to Korat was full so we would be going the long way the next day. I elected to book us the day after that so we went straight to Korat non-stop. Oh my, two more days in Bangkok. Karl Richter met us at the Pax Terminal and exclaimed, “Where in the hell have you guys been?” We didn’t have the heart to tell him, since he hadn’t even been to Jungle Survival School and had 7 missions.
I was in the 421st TFS flying number four for the first half of the tour, quite often in the Wild Weasel flight. I was in competition with Karl to be the best wingman in the squadron. I earned a DFC on the raid to JCS-51, the POL tank farm in downtown Hanoi. I volunteered to spare a lot, and launched 8 out of 32 spares. In August I had about 80 missions and 7th Air Force announced that on 1 October, 100 missions was not going to end a tour, a year was. So as we finished 100 missions, we were going to be transferred to Saigon and finish the year in the frag shop. I had requested a consecutive overseas tour to the 18th Tac Fighter Wing, Kadena AB, Okinawa and had orders for the 67th Tac Fighter Squadron. I knew that I was not going to be sent to 7th AF because 18th TFW pilots were continuously being called down to replace pilots that had been shot down so they were short pilots to sit alert. So I volunteered to give my missions to fellow pilots and take their R&Rs (Rest and Relaxation mini vacation of 4-5 days). So I began riding C-130s to Naha, Okinawa, and first trip bought a motorcycle and got a license. Second trip I learned that I would have to buy a house so I began house hunting. Next trip I found another pilot who was leaving in December and had a house for $7900 in Onishi Terrace Heights. I called Sally about the house so she went to VP Jim Hargrove at the Academy Bank, signed an unsecured loan and sent me a check for $7900. Next trip I bought the house and went to transportation, presented my orders and filled out forms to get Sally and Cindy travel to Okinawa. I asked for December but they said there was no travel from Thanksgiving to after 1 January, so I settled for November. I hadn’t signed in to Kadena yet, but they never asked. On the next trip I bought a car and arranged for temporary billeting in a local hotel for Sally and Cindy until we could move in on December 15th. Then a trip to pick Sally up at the Pax Terminal and settle her in the hotel. The squadron wives took great care of them while I went back down to finish my missions. As it turned out, there was such an outcry, 7th AF withdrew the one year tour mandate and everyone went home after 100 missions.
There was an aircraft that had battle damage repaired at the IRAN facility at Tainan, Taiwan and was ready to be picked up. Knowing that the rule in the 18th Wing was that you couldn’t take a bird down to Tainan or pick one up unless you had done it before, but if you had done it before, it was someone else’s turn. I volunteered to go get it, and flew the clean F-105 to Clark AB. We couldn’t fly across the South China Sea single ship so I joined up with an F-4 and we took off together, me to Da Nang and them to Ubon. About 20 minutes into the climb, they announced that their Tacan had gone out and they were returning to Clark. The next day we got 30 minutes out and their radar went out. This was becoming annoying. After all the 15th was approaching. The next day I announced that since they climbed out at 275 knots and my best climb clean was at 350 knots, I would wait 10 minutes and catch up with them in the climb out. I hadn’t spotted them with my radar and the DF didn’t work so we were working Tacan fixes of of the picket ship, Duck Butt at the half way point, until they announced that their Tacan went out again and they were returning to Clark just as I passed Duck Butt. I was over half way and going to Da Nang. I called Panama for flight following and asked if there were any tankers in the area. What a deal, a mission was just finishing up and the tankers were headed south from the water anchors. I joined up with one of them, took 5000 pounds and changed my flight plan for Korat. What a trip. As all of us have experienced, there are a number of harrowing stories that I may write about someday. I flew my 100th mission on December 1st, celebrated my 24th birthday on the 10th and PCS’d to Kadena AB and the 67th TFS on the 15th.
At the time the 18th Tac Fighter Wing had three squadrons, the 12th, the 44th and the 67th. We had eight F-105s on nuclear alert with B61s (http://nuclearweaponarchive.org/Usa/Weapons/B61.html)_ for targets in China. My sortie carried two bombs, one for Shanghai and one for Hangzhou. Most of our training missions were air to ground range missions to Iejima island where Ernie Pyle was killed. In early 1967 the 44th was moved to Korat and the 421st colors were folded. By the end of 1967, the 67th was moved to Misawa AB Japan and I garnered the Wing Flying Training Officer job. When the North Koreans hijacked the USS Pueblo on the 23 January 1968, the Wing Plans Officer and I had just completed the plan for a 12-ship deployment somewhere. The next morning, we learned about the hijacking and were summoned to the Wing Commander’s office along with the DO and DM. We were excited about the opportunity to exercise one of our plans and took the plan book with us. Saber Sams said “I don’t want to see plans, just get 12 aircraft to Osan immediately.” We looked at each other, shrugged our shoulders and left. Back in our office, we called the Wing Command Post and said “Saber Sams wants 12 aircraft to Osan so execute Wing Plan 68-2 with centerline MER, 20mm HEI and 450 drops. Launch 4 ships as aircraft are ready.” The effort was going like clockwork. C-130s were arriving to haul the mobility equipment and support packages to Osan. With the plan in place, everyone knew what to do and when. The boss never knew we executed one of the plans.
Yakota AB squadrons sat their nuclear alert at Osan AB and the 80th TFS had transitioned to F-4Ds the year before. The F-4Ds took over the alert on 1 January. We learned that our Thuds were being configured with AIM-9s and three drop tanks for air-to-air alert, and the F-4s were being configured with two Mk-84 2000 pound bombs, but the correct cabling for the pylons was not available. Our 12 F-105s were on alert by 2200 and two more were ready to deploy. Roy Jolly and I landed at Osan at 2330 and the ground crew had dropped the MERs and 450 drops, uploaded multi-weapon pylons and centerline drop, loaded the Mk-84s and refueled our two airplanes by midnight. They still didn’t have either of the two F-4s loaded. We finally convinced the staff toads at 314th Air Division that F-105s don’t do well in dog fights but are great carrying bombs and F-4s are great in dog fights and should be configured with air-to-air missiles for air defense alert. It was terribly cold and sitting alert in igloo shelters was not a lot of fun. We finally started flying training sorties in late March and moved the operation to Kwanju AB in May. The crew of the Pueblo was released on December 23rd, but we kept a contingent of 6 airplanes at Kwanju.
On one of the rotation flights, I was leading a flight of three in a two-seat F model and we had to weather divert into Kunsan AB. After a great Friday night party with the National Guard F-100 jocks, we were flying to a tanker down south, then up the east coast and across to the range before we returned to Kwanju. Unfortunately I fell off a ladder trying to put my clothes bag back in the airplane. I bumped my head but the judo slap with my right hand really did a trick to my wrist. I rode for 4.5 hours in the back seat of the F and had to be lifted out when we got to Kwanju. The x-ray revealed that I had cracked the end of my inside arm bone, so I got a cast for a flight back to Kadena in an RF-4C. When Sally came to get me, she knew something was wrong with my arm. I remained on Okinawa for the remainder of her pregnancy and got to take her to the hospital for Jim’s birth. In addition to being a Functional Check Pilot in the Thud, I checked out in the T-33 to fly target missions for the F-102s at Naha AB. I flew the T-33 to meetings at 5th AF at Yakota AB, and to meetings with 314th Air Division at Osan.
In late 1968 I received orders for the Air Force Institute of Technology and Wright-Patterson AFB in Dayton, Ohio to get a Masters Degree in Electrical Engineering. This course of study presumably resulting from my engineering project on the PACE analog computer at USAFA. Although I was interested in computers and computer science, AFIT was not in my plans. I extended for a year to allow time to explore other options for graduate school. Our Operations Officer was Charlie Bishop, who had been a Professor in the Aeronautics Department at USAFA. He made contacts and the family prepared for a June 1969 leave in the ConUS. In addition to family visits in Fort Walton Beach and Monument, I visited AFIT, University of Arizona Computer Sciences Department, and the Department of Aeronautics at USAFA. My meeting with Phil Bouchard, Al Kaprenas, and Bob Lopina went well and they offered me a position in the department with a Masters Degree from MIT. I was shocked and said I had a program at East Podunk State Teachers College in mind, not MIT.
We packed up our stuff, sold our cars and left for the US in May 1970. We picked up a bran new Green VW bus in San Francisco and drove across the country to Woburn Mass and a little duplex. I requested and got Professor Eugene Covert to be my advisor. I couldn’t believe he had a stainless steel 8-foot long wind tunnel model of an F-100 on his credenza. I worked out a program to earn an Engineer in Aeronautics and Astronautics Degree in addition to a Masters Degree in two years. It was approved by AFIT. The courses were like trying to get a drink from a fire hose. But I found time to help with a Boy Scout troop sponsored by our First United Methodist Church in Reading, and to get a Flight Instructor rating in helicopters. I followed that rating with Flight Instructor Airplane, Flight Instructor Instruments, and Flight Instructor Gyroplane. Our engineering project was developing a system to deliver waste nuclear fuel to earth orbit safely and showing that it was as cost effective as any terrestrial storage scheme. My thesis was designing a system to employ third harmonic collective pitch motion to minimize the rotor induced vibrations in a CH-46 helicopter. I suspect the concept is employed in Special Operations helicopters today to minimize rotor sound. I also updated Department Head Rene Miller’s derivation of the equations of motion for a helicopter to reflect the current variable connotations. While attending school I was promoted to major first time eligible below the zone, joining the Class of ’61 year group. I was a member of a unique group of “slick winged” Majors.
We managed to get a house on the Academy in Douglas Valley on a cul-de-sac shared with only a duplex. In addition to teaching Aeronautics 301, How and Why Airplanes Fly, as an Assistant Professor I developed a course on vertical and short takeoff and landing. I flew as an instructor in the cadet sailplane program for over 200 sorties, and in the T-33 as a flight instructor and Standardization Evaluation Flight Examiner for over 800 hours and earning Senior Pilot rating. I also served at the 33rd Squadron Academic Advisor for the Doolies and Third Classmen who had not declared a major. I was selected for Armed Forces Staff College after which I would have to serve an unaccompanied overseas tour. I did not have the requisite number of months of operational flying to qualify for the flying pay gate, but I could return to a flying assignment following a non-flying (command post) remote assignment and make the gate. However, by extending 6 months at the academy and attending the spring class at AFSC, I would have to be assigned a flying remote to make the gate. My choices were F-4s in Reykjavik Iceland, or OV-10s to NKP in Thailand or Osan Korea. I had to forge a trade to get OV-10s to Korea although the OV-10 unit at NKP was moved to Sembach Germany. I was assured that I could return to Davis-Monthan and an A-10 instructor slot following the tour as a Forward Air Controller. We bought a house in the west side of Tucson and I left the family for Osan after OV-10 FAC School at Hurlburt Field, Florida. Sally had found a job working with an air conditioning and heating company and eventually as a lab technician in an optometrist’s office.
Field grade pilots in the 19th TASS at Osan served as Air Liaison Officers with the US Army brigades at Camp Casey and others, and with the ROC Army Corps Headquarters. I drew the ROC Army 5th Corps at Choerwon, but lived at Camp Red Cloud. After six months, I returned to Tucson for a mid tour leave and learned upon my return that I had orders for OV-10s to Bergstrom AFB. I called my detailer and was told that everyone at Osan would be returning to another two years as a FAC at Bergstrom or Shaw and just because I was a Major, I still had to go. I extended for 6 months at Osan and only got my Report Not Later Than date changed 6 months. In the rotation of assignments, I was moved to Osan as the Squadron Training Officer. After another leave to Tucson, I was given the Squadron Operations Officer job, where we successfully completed and Operational Readiness Inspection and a Team Spirit exercise, my second. I also taught mathematics courses as an Adjunct Professor for the University of Maryland and a Flight Instructor in the Osan Aero Club. As my rotation date neared, I learned that an O-2 FAC squadron was being assembled at Davis-Monthan and requested assignment to it instead of Bergstrom since my family was already there. It was approved, however a week before I left Osan, I got a call from the 602nd Wing Commander at Bergstrom asking if I would be willing to change my assignment to be the commander of the 23rd TASS. Of course I would, and sadly bought happy hour. The next evening, I got another call and was asked if I had pinned on LtCol yet. When I replied no and that it would probably be December, the end of the year group, he said that the Ops Officer is already LtCol, and he couldn’t bring me in as the commander. I gloriously bought happy hour.
What a PCS move! Sally picked me up at the airport, drove me home, and I walked in and sat down in my chair; move complete. It was April, and the squadron was to begin getting aircraft from the Pennsylvania Air National Guard in July. I was the Director of Operations. We had to refurbish an old building for our Operations, write procedures, find reference regulations and in-process newcomers. I helped with the setup of the maintenance operations as well, and worked with base supply for all our O-2 and M-117 jeep spare parts. We had a continuous string of pilots going to Pennsylvania and returning with an O-2 apiece. By October we had all 24 airplanes and 10 M-117 jeeps. The Squadron Commander was grounded after his annual physical for a heart problem, and after interviews I was selected to be the new commander. I pinned on silver oak leaves on the 1st of December 1977, celebrated my 35th birthday on the 10th and assumed command of the 27th TASS on the 15th. The squadron of 250 airmen had 50 pilots, every aspect of operations, and aircraft, jeep and ground radio maintenance for 24 O-2 aircraft, 15 M-117 jeeps, and 15 ROMADS. The yearly budget was $18m not including personnel, and we were the only operational unit on Davis-Monthan AFB.
In January we made our first deployment, a two ship to Nellis AFB for some Close Air Support missions on the Indian Springs range. Two IPs from the 23rd TASS flew with our pilots to coach us through the process. A single ship mission did not show up for a mission on the range and did not return, so a search ensued. With Sally and the chaplain by my side we had to make the notification to the family. A week transpired and another O-2 participating in the search, crashed on the north slope of Mount Charleston. This was a death notification to the family. The same day, the first O-2 was found on the east slope of Mt Charlie with only the 23rd TASS IP in the cockpit. A search of the area was finally terminated after 40 days, but the rescue team and their dogs from Fairchild AFB continued the effort on leave. A search of the immediate area down hill from the crash site discovered my pilot deep into a patch of scrub oak. What a way to begin a command.
In mid March, we were presented an Operational Readiness Inspection and a Management Effectiveness Inspection. Every aspect of our operation was thoroughly searched. We had a mobility exercise for a package of 6 aircraft to deploy somewhere with the complete assembly of maintenance equipment, spare parts and willie pete rockets. One of the 6 aircraft had to be disassembled and packaged for shipment on a C-141 as an example of our capability. One of my stellar pilots did his run-up after being armed for a live trip to the range, and found one of the magnetos was not checking out. Instead of taxiing down to the dearm area to safe the rockets, he taxied back into the parking area with live, armed willie pete rockets. Needless to say, we failed the ORI, but under the circumstances, I remained the commander. We passed a follow-up ORI and MEI the next year. We had at least two airplanes and FACs deployed somewhere in the western US all the time. We had three airplanes, pilots and ground crew flying out of NAS Lemoore on a three-month joint Army•Air Force close air support test program called TASVAL. It was a test to see which aircraft; the A-10 or the Huey Cobra was more effective against a tank attack. One O-2 was an airborne “A station” for range instrumentation and the other was the FAC. Turned out that the two attack aircraft together were far more effective than either one alone.
As a two year in grade LtCol, the fact that I had never had a headquarters staff tour glowed in the dark. Fortunately my education and experience afforded me the opportunity to be the Tactical Air Command Liaison Officer to the AFSC Space and Missile Center or SMC in El Segundo, California. I was the onsite warfighter representative to all our space programs, including GPS, weather and communications satellites, Defense Support Program, and Secretary of the Air Force Special Projects. I was also the Air Force Liaison to the US Army Combat Developments Experimentation Command at Fort Ord where I had to attend two meetings a month. This billet had a Rated Pilot Index Six, requiring me to maintain currency in some aircraft. Fortunately the California Air Guard had a FAC squadron flying O-2s out of Ontario Airport, and they graciously allowed me to fly their airplanes.
The family had now lived in our 3 acre compound in Tucson for four years and all we could get for it was $130k and we needed at least $160k to get a house more than an hour commute from Los Angeles Air Force Station. Sally found me a 1963 19-foot Winnebago travel trailer that I parked in a nice park three miles from the base. I was able to get an O-2 for a weekend trip to Tucson as well as to my meetings at Fort Ord. Unfortunately I got more flying hours than the Squadron Commander in the first half, and I got a bit curtailed. Since the house in Tucson was not even getting any lookers, we decided to invest the move money in an airplane. The most economical buy was going to be a Grumman American TR-2. I was at a program review for the anti-satellite program in Dallas when I found a great TR-2B for $6000 in Gallup. The seller agreed to fly to Albuquerque to pick me up and return to Gallup. That was my checkout in the airplane and after we took care of all the paperwork, I took off into the setting sun. Four night hours latter I landed at Hawthorne Airport. The little engine only burned 7 gallons an hour for 100 knots but only had 20 gallons of fuel. On the way home on Friday I would stop at Blithe for fuel and park at Avra Valley and be at home in Tucson by 2000. I would leave Monday morning at 0300 and stop at Palm Springs, arriving at Hawthorne by 0730 and be at work at 0800. It was two five-hour commutes but I would be spending ten one-hour commutes if I lived in Fountain Valley. As it was, I was on trips over 160 days a year, so I wasn’t home during the week anyway.
The work in program offices was very interesting and I learned a lot about space systems. My principle job was representing the tactical Air Force or warfighters to the GPS Program Office. I got to watch the launch of NavStar 7, put on a blind bombing demonstration for the Fighter Weapons School Commander Lt Gen Kelly in Yuma, and the Naval Post Graduate School and Ft Ord commanders in Monterey, California. I attended virtually all the program reviews that the various program offices, and tried to keep the action officers in the requirements directorate at TAC Headquarters appraised of any major issues and challenges. The most work interesting was the TENCAP program in SAFSP where I was able to get advanced electronic intelligence equipment into several deployed and deployable headquarters planning units.
I was promoted to Colonel, pinned the eagles on in March 1982 and selected for Air War College. We put the Tucson house on the market, but still got no lookers so we ended up renting it. We moved into Millbrook north of Maxwell AFB and Sally found a job with a Prattville optometrist. I was involved with the Boy Scout troop with son Jim in Millbrook, became a Kwanian to sponsor the Key Club for daughter Cindy at Millbrook High School, and was the Year Book editor. As far as the course work, three of us from SMC at LAAFS put together a 36-hour SI•TK classified course on our national space systems. It required getting SI•TK clearances for the entire class, sweeping the auditorium, and lining up the principal leaders in the intelligence aspects of the space programs to make presentations. I put together a 90-minute presentation on orbital mechanics and basic satellite systems.
I wanted to carry my experiences with all the space systems into Space Command, but for the second time, my 'overseas return date' glowed in the dark; I needed another remote tour. Space Command offered me the Base Commander at Sondrestrom AB in Greenland. I moved the family to Fort Walton Beach and bought them a ski boat. After getting them moved in and checked out on the boat, I took a two-day course in contract management at Space Command Headquarters before heading for Greenland. The job was principally a contract administration monitor for the base operations contractor Danish Arctic Contractor who provided the entire base functions except the communications that was tended to by our Air Force communications detachment. Our mission was to resupply the cold war Defense Early Warning radar sites on the east and west coasts of Greenland and two stations on the ice cap. An icebreaking ship came in the harbor 10 miles away and stuff was convoyed day and night to the warehouses. Ski equipped C-130s from the Schenectady New York Air National Guard flew missions hauling parts, food and diesel fuel to the radars on the ice cap. A highlight of the tour was a stop by Prince Phillip on a trip back to England from a visit to Canada. I put together a formal dinner and got pushback from my lady officers who thought their job was only 0730-1600, five days a week. Although they accused me of sexual harassment, they attended the dinner and discovered Prince Phillip to be a gentle, yet dynamic and humorous person. After a mundane MEI, I returned to Fort Walton Beach in March with an assignment to Fort Bliss as the Air Liaison Officer to the Air Defense Artillery School. I was suffering from severe pain down my right leg and was diagnosed with degenerative disk disease, and a ruptured disk. I underwent spinal fusion of L4, L5 and S1 at the Eglin AFB hospital on 31 March. Convalescent leave would be at least two months, so my assignment was changed to TAC Headquarters at Langley AFB as the AF Director of the Joint Studies Group under the DCS Plans. In June we rented a four-up four-down house in Hampton on a corner with 37 trees in our yard. Thank goodness for a teenage son come Fall.
The Joint Studies Group had moved from Nellis AFB and occupied a great building on the NASA side of the base. It was comprised of about 25 Majors and LtCols and 25 GS-13•15s with Masters and PhDs in Operations Research. The Army half of the group was at Fort Monroe with about the same caliber of personnel. Not a lot was going on to keep all these folks busy, so I set about finding some things to study. I made up a slick tri-fold brochure touting our capabilities from people to computers, and sent them to everyone I could think of at centers, schools, program offices, special units and so forth. Not the thing to do. Major General Tony McPeak was DCS Plans and his Deputy Colonel Peter Foley explained to me that the Joint Studies Group worked on assignments and projects that the General wanted and nothing else. I was replaced by my great classmate Stu McCurdy who needed a big job to ensure promotion, and I was detailed to an Army special study on theater missile defense. Although the Army developed, procured and manned the area air defense missiles, I was reminded that the Air Force operated the area air defense system. I was not to let the Army do something that would affect the capability to shoot down airplanes.
The Joint Anti-Tactical Missile Program was responding to a possibility that the Soviet Army had developed a guidance system for the scud missile that gave it a 10-meter CEP. With this kind of accuracy, two scuds with cluster munitions had a 95% PK on a Patriot missile radar, taking out a battery of 36 missiles before any were fired at airplanes. If the Patriot battery had an anti-missile capability, it could fire two missiles at each of the incoming scuds, and probably reduce that PK to less than 10% and still have 32 missiles to shoot down airplanes with. The Study Group at Fort Leavenworth set about writing the ROC, Required Operational Capability for Patriot PAC III, and began developing concept papers and writing specifications for a JATM program office at the Redstone Arsenal in Huntsville. As the study was wrapping up, the General was preparing for reassignment and wrote me a short note that said in light of my failure to stop the Army from pursuing an anti-missile capability for the Patriot, he would not assist me with my next assignment and suggested I consider other career opportunities. I was then sent to Korea for Team Spirit 86 as a Major augmentee. I had just returned from Hattiesburg Mississippi where I helped my daughter remodel a studio apartment and took three weeks advanced leave. I just knew that when I returned from Korea, I would have a much less than desirable assignment and a seven day option wouldn’t work because I couldn’t afford to pay back the leave. So I filed my retirement for 28 February 1987, and moved into the “bird farm” on the third floor of the headquarters building.
Major General Chuck Horner replaced McPeak, and I invited myself to teach him everything possible about space systems, products and tasking. Several years later after being the Air Component Commander in Desert Storm and as the Commander of Space Command, he was the keynote speaker at a Space Symposium in Salt Lake City. The event was sponsored by Senator Hatch and included all the space industries in Utah. I had attended the Small Satellite Conference at Utah State University in Logan and attended this event as well. I found him and said hello. He said, “Ed Harvey, I cannot thank you enough for the space education you gave me at Langley. Desert Storm would have been nearly impossible without it. I would ask for products I needed and my intel guys would ask how I knew about that. It was also great to have an anti-missile capability in our Patriots. One less thing I had to be concerned about.” He presided over my retirement ceremony on 28 February 1987.
My Second Career
I interviewed with a number of beltway bandits that I had worked with in the space and missile defense business including BDM and several companies in Rosslyn, Virginia. Finally I was presented and accepted an offer from Buddy Beck in Atlantic Systems Research and Engineering in Springfield, Virginia. On the way back to Hampton we found a townhouse development under construction. We bought an end unit with the back yard at the middle level for a walkout in the dining room, got a deck added to the bedroom level, made the front two bedrooms into one, and moved the washer and dryer from the basement to the master bath. I participated in the Home Owners Association as the Secretary for the 7 years we were there. When we bough this townhouse we still had the house in Tucson as a rental while it was on the sale market. Taking time to fly to Tucson and repair the place between renters was becoming a drag, so we finally got a buyer. In all we ended up loosing about $30k on the deal.ASR&E was a mom and pop study shop that had a contract with Department of Defense Office of Land Warfare to support the anti-tactical missile programs. I managed an effort that developed enhancements to the NATO command and control elements to target Soviet-Warsaw Pact tactical ballistic missiles and devised field experiments to demonstrate their utility. The product that we delivered to the government led directly to validation and documentation of the requirements for upgrades to the Defense Support Program infrared surveillance satellite system and the necessity for timely communications to alert PATRIOT air defense missile fire units of incoming tactical ballistic missiles. We engineered an advanced concept for development of a class of small, rapidly launched satellites to provide surveillance and targeting in support of military operations in any region of the world.
After a year and a half, I learned of an opportunity with another beltway bandit ARDAK in McLean, Virginia. John Slack had been associated with some of the space programs I had worked in El Segundo and the other partner Pool was a fellow MIT alumni. We had a small business set-aside contract to build a small 150-pound satellite called Passive Radio Frequency Interference Location Experiment or PRoFILE for the Office of Naval Research in 1.5 years for $1.5 million. Fairchild in Germantown, Maryland was our subcontractor to build the satellite. It was an octagonal cylinder 18 inches in diameter and 18 inches tall with a military LST-5B UHF transceiver as the payload. The original plan was to launch it on a space shuttle in a container called a Get Away Special Can and drag stabilize it with a 15-foot pole with a flat plate at the end. To make sure the ballistic coefficient was enough to keep it in orbit a year, the body was half-inch thick aluminum. After the Challenger accident and the shuttle fleet grounding, we were manifested on a Scout rocket that could launch 300 pounds to a 150-mile orbit. ONR had us engineer a second satellite to carry a GPS receiver being space qualified. After working on it for a year, it died from lack of funding and we engineered a 150-pound stainless steel disc to take its place. The Navy program sponsorship moved to the Naval Research Laboratory who “builds Navy ELINT [electronic intelligence] satellites.” We had spent $3 million in 3 years, had called up the Scout launch vehicle that was on its way to Vandenberg AFB, and we needed two months and $200k to launch it. NRL cancelled the program, blew $850k of Air Force launch budget, and the satellite is a door stop at the Naval Post Graduate School in Monterey, California. Naturally I led a number of proposal efforts for new business and one of them was a small business set aside to design a generic 75-150 kg satellite bus to support a variety of scientific and military payloads. We had Rockwell International, the space shuttle builder, represented by Jayne Schnaars in business development as our subcontractor for the satellite construction. I had a little network.
I began a frantic search for another job and answered ads in the papers around the beltway. I had been told that chasing ads was fruitless and the only way to get a job as a senior manager was by networking. Behold, an ad by OAO Corporation in Greenbelt, Maryland for a manager of their subcontract with IBM Federal Systems in Gaithersburg, Maryland for the Operational Control Segment of the GPS satellite constellation. I had the GPS and space systems background and was hired.
In Gaithersburg, Maryland, I had 12 engineers and we developed new GPS Block IIR space vehicle command and telemetry databases, operator displays, Ada software programs, software system functional tests, operator handbooks, system operator training, and models for space vehicle attitude control and propulsion system commands for station-keeping maneuvers. We developed a training program for station acquisition and station maintenance computer programs. The 13 of us consumed 10% of the budget, were 13% of the workforce and performed 15% of the earned value. IBM sold the Federal Systems group to Lockheed-Martin and it became Mission Systems. When the teaming began for the upgrade to the OCS and the Block IIF satellites, we were offered eight tenths of a man-year labor to be on the Lockheed-Martin team. Walter Scott from the Rockwell International GPS Program Office in Downey, California call me and asked if OAO would like to be on their team. Jayne Schnaars in business development remembered me from ARDAK and knew that OAO had been a subcontractor from the beginning for spacecraft unique elements in the control segment and actually sat at the consoles and flew the seven-satellite Block I test constellation from the Control Center on Vandenberg AFB, California.
All 13 of us would be covered as a directed third tier subcontractor to Computer Sciences Corporation. We wrote the proposal for the OCS upgrade with CSC in their facility in Maryland. Our cost came out like $36 million and Lockheed-Martin said they could do it for $25 million. They won the contract but ended up spending more than twice that to get the job done. We wrote the proposal for the Block IIF satellite control segment modifications with Rockwell in Downey in the spring of 1995. We won the contract so Sally and I put the townhouse up for sale, packed our 18,000 pounds of stuff in a moving van, and left for California. We were to work in the Seal Beach plant for a year, and after the satellite designers completed the Preliminary Design Review, we would move to Colorado Springs. With that plan, we looked at one and two bedroom beach cottage rentals in Seal Beach and Sunset Beach for $1500 a month and we would put most of the stuff in a storage room, but the size we needed would run $500 a month. We found a three-bedroom patio house in Huntington Beach with a big two-car garage for $1350 a month. So we stored our stuff in the house.
Our OAO contingent with five engineers in Gaithersburg, five in Colorado Springs and three in Seal Beach, developed the space vehicle unique data bases and displays, integrated and tested the computer program elements, planned and conducted formal software qualification testing, prepared software maintenance manuals and training programs, and developed operations procedures, software users manuals, operator training courses, electronic reference manuals and space vehicle on-orbit operations manuals. We developed system and software specifications supporting the system requirements and operations, and the specific efforts for verification of those requirements. A year passed and we incorporated requirements creep in a re-plan, then another year and another re-plan. The third re-plan I asked my boss in Colorado Springs for my $5000 relocation allowance that I was going to receive after moving to the Springs, and a raise to California wages. I got a 3% raise. When I complained, he said if he gave me any more I would be making more than he was. I said, “You’re not living in Southern California,” and I marched over to Beth Snyder in Boeing North American Human Resources. I asked if she might have a systems engineer position for $105k a year. She told me to go to the employment website after lunch and reply to the requisition.
The GPS team didn’t even want me to stay two weeks, nor would they allow me to work on the GPS program. Evidently they thought I knew too much about what was hidden in the closet and didn’t think I could or would be objective. I moved into the next building and became Principal Ground Systems Architect in a new group. I led an architecture definition and systems engineering effort for the development and implementation of the Advanced Ground Control Systems product line. Our team of systems engineers created schedules, developed and monitored budgets and evaluated candidate employees. The team developed a ground control architecture, defined the requirements, developed specifications, and evaluated vendor proposals for the Ellipso communications satellite system. Then I led the Boeing part of the ground segment IPT in the Space Based Laser Integrated Flight Experiment Program that lasted a year before it was cancelled. That was really an interesting concept: cover the sky with big laser satellites that can burn a hole in a boosting ICBM.
The Defense Applied Research Projects Agency came up with a program for on-orbit servicing of satellites. Our Phantom Works picked me to lead the proposal effort. The Orbital Express Advanced Technology Demonstration program defined the space operations architecture and demonstrated the technologies necessary for on-orbit servicing. I led the initial proposal effort, and won one of the two 14-month first phase of concept development and preliminary design that was valued at $6M. The challenge was that the two major teammates TRW and Ball Aerospace wanted a third or $2M each, and when we mapped out what we needed for this no profit research effort, we were a million dollars short. I went after some company research and development funds, and after some convincing briefings, got some money. Our partners’ program managers did the same, and we established the program office. We got half of a temporary trailer building assembled in a back parking lot and set about developing the program schedule, recruiting the engineering and support staff, and preparing the program budget. As the Cost Account Manager, I was responsible for managing the program cost, schedule and risk in the effort to develop a preliminary design sufficient to win a down select from two competitors for the $72M second phase devoted to developing, launching and operating two spacecraft. The program schedule had a review every three months. Our first review was in early December and we had adequately addressed virtually all the element required in the review. The next three months were tough, and in December my top engineers were detailed to Huntington Beach to work on a satellite program proposal and it was difficult to get the teammates to detail engineers to the program. An executive level manager had been relieved from the Shuttle program at the government’s request and was detailed to our Orbital Express program. It was beginning to look like we weren’t going to make the second review with the needed elements completed. Pleading for the return of my engineers taken to work on another proposal fell on deaf ears. I was replaced as the Program Manager. The executive level manager didn’t last very long either, but we won the $72M effort, and built, launched and operated the two satellites.
I set about doing business development engineering support and searching the government for possible projects. One short term program was the development and execution of an air traffic management demonstration showing how location, heading, altitude and groundspeed flight data from aircraft and onboard GPS systems can be transmitted through Connexion by Boeing to a ground site, combined with ATC radar derived data and transmitted back to the aircraft. Connexion was a Boeing in-house program to provide airlines with the necessary equipment to provide wifi to all the passengers in every airplane through a satellite link. This fast paced demonstration was conceived, developed and executed in 20 weeks in the weeks following the 9•11 terrorist attack on the World Trade Center. Boeing had merged with McDonnell Douglas and we won the National Reconnaissance Office’s Future Imagery Architecture Program. I interviewed for several positions and finally went to work in the ground segment effort.
I worked on a proposal for an automatic map generation program using digital elevation data but the NRO couldn’t get enough funding out of the Defense Mapping Agency to carry the program. I ended up managing the delivery and installation of the ground control system hardware and software at the operations site and for developing the concepts for maintenance of the ground segment software and hardware this space program. I also managed the design and development of a nation wide network to provide an engineering support environment for this program using a minimum staff of network engineers and technicians, coordinated procurement of the majority of the necessary hardware, and directed installation of the equipment at the operations site. I continued to coordinate the development and deployment of the hardware and software at the remaining nodes using ground segment engineering and procurement resources. In the fall of 2008 everything was just about finished and functioning as it should, so the program was handed over to the operators and I joined the 60-day notice gang. My last day was going to be 28 October, and unfortunately I went over 10 years on November 2nd meaning an additional week of severance pay. In the last week as I began out processing, I got a call from the systems engineering manager for the Training Systems and Services group in Mesa, Arizona who had seen my name on the 60 day notice list. He asked if I would consider moving to Arizona and working on maintenance trainers. I agreed and the next day I got notice that I would be in his organization on Friday.
We rented a house in Las Sendas in northeast Mesa on the 2nd fairway of the golf course in a gated community for $1395 a month. Our rent in Huntington Beach had just risen to $1730 a month in 11 years so we were happy. It was available December 1 but our move couldn’t be scheduled until January. TSS built Army Apache attack helicopter trainers for the Army maintenance school at Fort Eustis in Newport News, Virginia. We also built trainers for other Boeing platforms including the F/A-18, the CH-47 Chinook and the C-17. I was the lead systems engineer on the Canadian Chinook Trainer contract until my good friend sent one of my local 5-15 reports to the Program Manager in Saint Louis plant. In it I had said, “Apparently we are waiting for a response from Rockwell Collins on a ROM request for the CAAS emulation software to complete the provider trade study. Everything is kept secret from our team.” This was factual but the Program Manager, a first timer, didn’t like it, and she threw me under the bus. My friend, who had written the proposal and worked the amendments to get it into the Canadian’s budget, also got thrown under the bus a few weeks later. So he and I worked on business development including a proposal to build the US Navy’s Ship to Shore Connector, a replacement for the Landing Craft Air Cushion, a big hovercraft to carry tanks to the beach. Boeing pulled out of the team after the final RFP came out as a fixed price development effort for one vehicle. We put together a virtual maintenance road show on a 60-inch touch screen display, and I was doing odd jobs.
Boeing decided to eliminate the middle level of managers because there were too many top-level managers. Sounds like a good fix, huh? So our group of engineers moved down the ladder to an engineering pool and a senior systems engineer, me, was no longer on the manning list. I got another 60 day notice, spent the time packing my office, and took my 13 weeks of pay severance package on May 28th and began drawing my Boeing retirement pension on June 1st. Since we had not owned a home since we took a $25k loss on the sale of the Springfield townhouse, we decided to buy a big fifth wheel trailer and travel some. We parked it in the Lamplighter RV Resort in Star Valley, four miles east of Payson. We helped build an Exchange Club in Tempe, are active in the Payson United Methodist Church where I am the Chairman of the Trustees and I am an Elk.
To sum up my life, I’d say that I never had difficulty thinking outside the box, but when I launched on something, I would hit the end of the chain slightly under the Mach.
Sally and Ed December 2013
Sally and Ed Sedona 2014
[ Keynote Address at The Karl Wendell Richter Class of 2008 Exemplar Dedication ]
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