[Blindtlk] Co-Founder of Fidelco Guide Dog Foundation Dies

[Ray Foret Jr]

Gee, I thought Less Paul invented the electric guitar.  Begging your pardon, but, are you certain of the historical accuracy of this?


Sincerely, 
The Constantly Barefooted Ray!!!

Now A Very Proud and very happy Mac user!!!

Skype Name:
barefootedray

On Feb 6, 2011, at 4:50 PM, David Andrews wrote:

> 
>> 
>> Charles Kaman, 91, Helicopter Innovator. By MOTOKO RICH. Charles H. Kaman, an innovator in the development and manufacture of helicopter technology and, following a wholly different passion, the inventor of one of the first electrically amplified acoustic guitars, died on Monday in Bloomfield, Conn. He was 91.
>> 
>> Mr. Kaman, who had suffered several strokes over the last decade, died of complications of pneumonia, his daughter, Cathleen Kaman, said. He lived in Bloomfield.
>> 
>> Mr. Kaman  (pronounced ka-MAN) was a  26-year-old aeronautical engineer when he founded the Kaman Aircraft Company in 1945 in the garage of his mother's home in West Hartford, Conn. By the time he retired as chairman in 2001, he had built the Kaman Corporation into a billion-dollar concern that distributes motors, pumps, bearings and other products as well as making helicopters and their parts.
>> 
>> Within the aerospace industry, Mr. Kaman is best known for inventing dual intermeshing helicopter rotors, which move in opposite directions, and for introducing the gas turbine jet engine to  helicopters. The company's HH-43 Huskie was a workhorse in rescue missions in the Vietnam War.
>> 
>> Mr. Kaman, a guitar enthusiast, also invented the Ovation guitar, effectively reversing the vibration-reducing technology of helicopters to create a generously vibrating instrument that incorporated aerospace materials into its rounded back. In the mid-1960s he created Ovation Instruments, a division of his company, to manufacture it.
>> 
>> The Ovation allows musicians to amplify their sound without generating the feedback that often comes from using microphones. It was popularized in the late 1960s by the pop and country star Glen Campbell, who played it on his television show, 'The Glen Campbell Good Time Hour,' and who appeared in advertisements for the company. A long roster of rock and folk music guitarists began using it as well.
>> 
>> With his second wife, Roberta Hallock Kaman, Mr. Kaman founded the Fidelco Guide Dog Foundation, which trains German shepherds as guide dogs for the blind and the police. Since 1981, Fidelco has placed 1,300 guide dogs in 35 states and four Canadian provinces, said Eliot D. Russman, the foundation's executive director.
>> 
>> It came down to the helicopters, guitars and dogs,' Mr. Kaman's eldest son, C. William Kaman II,  said in a telephone interview.
>> 
>> In addition to his daughter, Cathleen, an artist who is known professionally as Beanie Kaman, and his son William, Mr. Kaman is survived by another son, Steven; four grandchildren; and two great-grandchildren.
>> 
>> Born on June 15, 1919, in Washington, Charles Huron Kaman was the only child of Charles William Kaman and Mabel Davis Kaman. As a teenager, he loved building model airplanes from balsa wood and tissue paper and flying them in indoor competitions. He had once hoped to be a professional pilot but abandoned that ambition because he was deaf in his right ear.
>> 
>> He received his bachelor's degree in aeronautical engineering from the Catholic University of America in 1940. After graduating, he went to work at Hamilton Standard Propeller Corporation, a unit of United Aircraft. He soon met Igor Sikorsky, another pioneer in helicopter design, who ran United's helicopter division and who inspired Mr. Kaman to begin developing his own parts.
>> 
>> One of his first inventions was the 'servo-flap,' which could be added to the edges of a rotor blade to help stabilize a helicopter. But one of his greatest contributions was to introduce jet engines to helicopters.
>> 
>> It gave them more power,' said Walter J. Boyne, chairman of the National Aeronautic Association and the author of numerous books on aviation. Helicopters really moved into their own.
>> 
>> Terry Fogarty,  who worked closely with Mr. Kaman for nearly a decade developing the K-MAX 'aerial truck,' said Mr. Kaman, who developed the first remote-control helicopter in 1957,  envisioned  an unmanned  cargo helicopter that would take over the 'dull, dirty and dangerous missions.
>> 
>> The company is developing such a helicopter, based on the K-MAX, and has a contract to deploy it to the Marine Corps for use in Afghanistan.
>> 
>> Mr. Kaman married Helen Sylvander in 1945; they divorced in 1971. Later that year he married Roberta Hallock, who died last year.
>> 
>> Ms. Kaman recalled her father strumming different versions of the Ovation in a studio at home, trying to figure out how deep or shallow to make the rounded back to produce the best sound.
>> 
>> That was his big gift to the three of us,' she said. When he would come home, he would play guitar.
>> 
>> PHOTOS: Charles H. Kaman, top, an engineer, invented the roundedback Ovation guitar. (PHOTOGRAPHS BY KAMAN CORPORATION, VIA BUSINESS WIRE; OVATIONGUITARS.COM)  .
> 
> 
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