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

[David Andrews]

It didn't say he invented the electric guitar apparently he developed 
an acoustic guitar with a non-acoustic electric-type-guitar pickup.

and I have heard of the brand Ovation.

Dave

At 05:18 PM 2/6/2011, you wrote:
>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)  .