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

Mon Feb 7 00:47:44 UTC 2011

Hi Ray.  Les Paul invented the solid body electric guitar.  This article 
spoke of an electric acoustic guitar...I just spent a small fortune on 
one...LOL

Michael----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Ray Foret Jr" <rforetjr at att.net>
To: "Blind Talk Mailing List" <blindtlk at nfbnet.org>
Sent: Sunday, February 06, 2011 5:18 PM
Subject: Re: [Blindtlk] Co-Founder of Fidelco Guide Dog Foundation Dies

> 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)  .
>>
>>
>> _______________________________________________
>> blindtlk mailing list
>> blindtlk at nfbnet.org
>> http://www.nfbnet.org/mailman/listinfo/blindtlk_nfbnet.org
>> To unsubscribe, change your list options or get your account info for 
>> blindtlk:
>> http://www.nfbnet.org/mailman/options/blindtlk_nfbnet.org/rforetjr%40att.net
>
>
> _______________________________________________
> blindtlk mailing list
> blindtlk at nfbnet.org
> http://www.nfbnet.org/mailman/listinfo/blindtlk_nfbnet.org
> To unsubscribe, change your list options or get your account info for 
> blindtlk:
> http://www.nfbnet.org/mailman/options/blindtlk_nfbnet.org/bonsai1b%40bellsouth.net 