The past few years have been ones of rapid growth, of exciting developments and of expanding opportunity for LTV Aerospace Corporation. And since a company's greatest asset is its people — not factories nor facilities — I want to express my sincere appreciation to the men and women of LTV Aerospace who are responsible for its growth — who have shared in the excitement of its expansion — and who can look forward, I promise, to even greater challenges and opportunity in the years ahead.
     This, the first issue of our new employee publication, PROFILE, is a particularly fitting means to extend that appreciation, as well as holiday greetings from myself and from other officers of the Company. And since we also begin a new year, it's appropriate that I outline what I feel to be our major challenges and opportunities in these next 12 months.
     First, I think it vital that we maintain our sense of excellence — our organizational pride — which has been the foundation of our growth. All successful companies have that pride; I think we have an unusually large amount of it.
     Second, we all must improve on our skills and our abilities. The advancing paces of technology, both in management and production, make continuing self-education and formal training mandatory for everyone from the newest empk to our top executives. Our competitive edge depends on it.
     Next, our competitive position also relies on constant and continuous awareness of costs and cost reduction methods in all our operations. 1 know this has been said many times "TfofeT out i cannot emphasize too strongly how important this single item is to the economic welfare of the Company, and. through continuing profitable operations, to the job security of all employees.
     Last — I anticipate being able in this next year to make several important announcements that will offer new horizons and greater opportunities for employees of LTV Aerospace Corporation and for its subsidiaries.
     We   are   a  growing  Company — growing  internally -growing by  cumulation — growing in industrial  stature -growing in management capabilities — growing in employee skills. I am proud to be a part of this growth and look forward to reporting to you, through future issues of this publication, news of significant advances and events which contribute to our progress.
     Again, the best of holiday greetings to each of you.

LTVAC: Name-Calling

     It's funny . . . People hate to have their names misspelled — or mispronounced.
     But they don't really think very much about incorrect identification of their company.
     Take the case of LTV Aerospace Corporation. The Company has grown so fast — and so many necessary changes have been made — that many people somehow just can't quite keep up with it.
     Some employees still call it Chance Vought. Others refer to it as LTV Aeronautics . . . and still others just call it LTV.
     Let's keep the record straight.
     If you work for LTV Aerospace Corporation, call it just that — not LTV. If you are referring to the aeronautics part of it, call it Vought Aeronautics Division. If you're in missiles, space or ground vehicles areas, then don't say "Astronautics", because it's the Missiles and Space Division.
   You can bet employees of LTV Aerospace subsidiaries such as Kentron Hawaii, or Computer Technology Incorporated, or Systems Technology Corporation, don't refer to their companies as "LTV".
    LTV (Ling-Temco-Vought, Inc.) is a giant corporation and the parent of LTV Aerospace. But LTV Aerospace, another quality company of LTV, also is publicly owned.
     So spread the word. Let's get LTV Aerospace correctly identified — and well known!
 

Late LTVAC Pilot Honored by Church

     John D. Omvig, an LTVAC experimental test pilot killed in the crash of an XC-142-A V/STOL aircraft in May of 1967, had many loves and many concerns. Especially close to him were children and young people.
     At the time of his death, Omvig was serving Arlington's Westminster Presbyterian Church as chairman of a committee charged with the planning, funding and construction of a new youth center. The center would serve the children of the church with eight Sunday School classrooms and an assembly hall for recreational and Scouting activities.
     Saddened by the tragic loss of Omvig, the church called on Ben Dawson, supervisor of flight tower operations at the Vought Aeronautics Division, to carry on the job at hand. It was also decided the new youth center should be a memorial to the test pilot whose dream was the new facility. Thus, it was proclaimed The John D. Omvig Youth Center.
     Ground was broken recently and construction of the new center was begun. In a few months, the Children and young people of Westminster Presbyterian will be able to work, study and play in the modern Omvig Center, a tribute to a man who loved children and a testimony to the faith and dedication of Ben Dawson,
 

OMVIG YOUTH CENTER - Ground-breaking cere- mony for the John D. Omvig Youth Center was high-lighted by the participation of Omvig's family and friends. Handling the four-handled ground- breaking shovel, are, from left:Ben Dawson;Julia Omvig, the honoree’s daughter; Mrs. Mary Ann (Omvig) Bjorkland; and the Reverend Jimmy Marrow, Pastor.

     Many professional photo-journalists work a lifetime without getting one of their photos on the cover of a magazine.
     But Art Shoeni just recently pinned his 150th magazine cover photo to the large display in his Vought Aeronautics Division office ... a record which may be unmatched in the aviation industry.
     The 15-year VAD veteran, a member of the LTV Aerospace corporate public relations and advertising department staff, reached the remarkable milestone with a photo of four A-7's aboard an aircraft carrier, published on the cover of the Spanish aviation magazine FLAPS.
     Any way you cut it, that comes out just two a year short of a cover a month.
     Over the years, Art's photographs of VAD products have appeared on the covers of dozens of foreign publications, as well as all of the major aircraft, aerospace and model airplane magazines in the United States.
     Art isn't just a "cover boy", though. His dramatic, illustrative shots of Regulus, F-8, XC-142 and A-7 craft have appeared on inside pages even more frequently. An editor of AVIATION WEEK, a major U. S. aviation magazine, reported recently that his publication has reproduced more photos taken by Schoeni than by any other photographer.
     In addition to photos, Art supplies stories and captions to the magazines. His writing skills were developed early in life as a newsman for United Press International at Portland, Ore., and Olympia, Wash., for 10 years, and later as a staff member and editor of Naval Aviation News, for 11 years.
     Photography was an early hobby with Art, but he developed it into a full-time occupation as a photo-journalist — and as the aircraft industry's most famed "cover boy."
 

Franko Sets Record

LTVAC Old-Timer
Tops 50-Year Mark

     The honor of being in the uninterrupted service of one aircraft company longer than anyone else in the United States — and possibly the world — belongs to George Franko, who recently was awarded his 50-year pin by J. R. Clark, Vought Aeronautics Division Vice President.                                                                    __________________________

     “When you live with something for 50 years — be it wife, a home, or a corporation — you feel it is a part of you,” Franko told Clark. “Watching this company grow, helping nurse it through the lean times and enjoying its good years, has been a continual pleasure.”

     Franko took a more-or-less temporary job as an errand boy in 1918. His “temporary job” became a lifetime career. Franko observed his official 50th anniversary on Dec. 20, but he actually went to work for Lewis & Vought at their Long Island, N. Y., plant in the summer of 1918 before he was old enough legally to get his 16-year-old’s working papers. December 20 was also his birthday.

     December also was the anniversary month of William H. “Bill” Meier, whose 45 years of service makes him second only to Franko in emplo

W. H. MEIER

yment longevity among LTV Aerospace employees. Franko is now employee service coordinator for the company and Meier is supervisor of reproductions.

     Lewis & Vought was a pretty small operation when Franko went on the payroll at $12.50 a week for a 50-hour week. Its 35 employees were making the VE-7 trainer biplane for the Army Signal Corps, the company’s first airplane. Franko’s job was sort of “handy boy,” ranging all the way from driving the car for Chance Milton Vought to running errands, sweeping floors, cleaning glue pots for the woodworking groups, washing windows and going from man to man to see what each wanted bought for his lunch. The plant then was on the third floor of a shoe factory.

  In the early 1920’s, the company’s payroll was reduced to just three men and Franko took a cut back to $11 a week.   

    Then business picked up and the 02U Corsair began to bring in sales. After his starting “flunky” job, Franko became a machine parts inspector in 1926. He progressed to chief inspector in 1939 and quality control manager in 1946.

     “I’ve had the good fortune of being in the midst of the action. Seeing problems develop, and then helping to resolve them, has been most rewarding,” Franko says. “Watching the development of the airplane from our very first wooden model with a water-cooled engine through the first metal-framed plane with an air-cooled engine, to the all-metal planes developed in the late ‘30’s, to today’s supersonic jets has been a continuing education for me.”

     But despite his reaching the 50-year mark, Franko doesn’t plan to retire until March. He and Mrs. Franko have purchased a condominium residence in Boca Raton, Fla., where they expect to enjoy the next several years doing things that active, alert retired people do.

     Meier went to work for the company in 1923 as secretary to the chief engineer at the Long Island plant when it was the Chance Vought Corporation. He later became a draftsman and detail layout man, then supervisor of engineering changes. During World War II, Meier was in charge of all reproductions at the rapidly-expanding plant then building F4U Corsairs and OS2U Kingfishers. He had started out working for $14 a week at a time when engineers were drawing $80 a month salary, only a fraction of what they get now.

     Both Franko and Meier were active in company athletics in their earlier days: Meier was catcher and Franko second baseman on the Vought baseball team. Both also bowled for the company team.

     A newly discovered “artist” in the Vought Aeronautics Division has several of his works hanging in prominent places at the Division headquarters.
     He works without any of the garb usually associated with artists. He has no smock, no beret. He wears a plastic face guard during his more creative moments.
     Neither does he use paint – although paint is applied to his creations later.
     The newly found artist probably is more of a sculptor than a painter. He’s a craftsman who is proud of his work—and the byproduct of his work.
     VAD’s artist is a router operator. The high-speed router’s rotating bit travels around metal patterns, cutting layers of aluminum into precise shapes for aircraft and assemblies produced at VAD’s Grand Prairie facility.
     The shaped metal itself could be called aerospace art. But, while he’s shaping the metal, the router
 

operator coincidentally cuts precise and intricate patterns into sheets of plywood underneath the metal shapes. When these boards become “chewed up” with many patterns, they are replaced. The old boards at one time were considered useless and were discarded as scrap.
     But H. M. Stone of the special arts group had seen some of the scrap boards and was intrigued with some of the accidental grooved designs etched by F. E. Thompson, router operator, and leadman H. W. Maclin.
     When an attractive decor was needed for the special presentation room at VAD, a request was made to special arts for ideas for inexpensive decoration. Stone remembered the panels.
     He presented his ideas to Walt Lengel, who then directed the special arts group, and to A. W. Wood, chief of technical publications. They gave him the goahead.
 

Stone took some of the panels and had them cleaned up. Then he experimented with various shades of color and paint. (The accompanying photo in black and white can’t do justice to the colorful results.)
     Some of the panels were placed in the XC142A V/STOL mockup room and in other places around the plant. They proved so popular that similar panels have been placed in various locations where an attractive background was needed at minimum expense.
     Some of the panels produced by Thompson and Maclin at the router, and then glamorized by Stone or other members of the special arts group, are bringing artistic touches to conference rooms in the plant at a very nominal cost.
     Some visitors who have seen the panels have asked whether they are “abstract” or “modern”.
     Take your pick, but for sure, it’s aerospace art.

TAKE A LETTER, PLEASE — Lowell Gregory seems to enjoy the company of MSD engineering secretaries, from left to right, Wanda Ellis, Nancy Owens, Yvonne Ellis and Evanita Bickle. (Photo by Bill Beal)

The Perfect Secretary

     When V. 0. Nelson of the MSD-T training section suggested to his class of secretaries that they bring in a sample of their boss’ work, Dr. Lowell Gregory matched Nelson’s bid and raised him one. He sent his secretary back to class with the following outline of what he considers the perfect secretary to be.
      How do the secretaries you know measure up?

1.   Manners, Behavior and Personality
     She is cool, quiet, almost formal, almost concealing the warm, friendly person who welcomes your visitors with a smile, your boss with a “yes sir,” your cohorts with a look of patience, your employees with sympathetic understanding and realization that they are all lucky to be working for such a wonderful guy who is only mean to people for their own good.

2.   Personal Appearance
     She dresses well, avoids extremes in styles, fades from sight before her makeup does, and re-appears fresher than ever.

3.   Skills
     She takes dictation well, especially when it’s delivered badly, types error-free, and spells like the dictionary. She knows a business phone from a “party line,” helps the callers identify themselves and their topics if they desire, and logs all calls in the boss’ absence.

4.   Organized Work Habits
     She treats her desk like a ship’s cabin; a place for everything and everything in its place. Filing is an art, practiced in business with scientific precision. Total recall, not dispose-all, is her filing motto. Clocks and calendars and note pads remind her to remind the boss of who, what, where and when.

5.   Pride in Work
     She is proud of her profession, the technical skills and the personal traits that change her from a typist into a secretary.

6.   Cooperation and Tact
     She cooperates with all to the point where wisdom dictates, she tactfully suggests that a problem exists that her boss will have to solve, e.g., section typing for section members is usually on a first-in, first-out basis, but if needed, a question to the boss can settle priorities — everything becomes top priority.

7.   Confidence and Trust
     She knows she is privy to official business and personnel records that are an important trust and never gives information to unauthorized persons. Informers are shot at sunrise.

8.   Knowledge and Understanding of the Boss’ Job
     She learns her boss’ boss: name, telephone number, and secretary. She learns the names and telephone numbers of key people with whom her boss transacts business. She learns enough of each one’s responsibilities to connect work and information with particular people.
 

Engineer's 'fly-paper' draws horse laughs

      Technical papers are very complicated, right? Not always. Some are more like fly-paper, except they draw more horse laughs than flies.
      Vought engineer Don Emmick's "technical paper" was of the latter variety. It was titled "Design Developments Leading to Improved Flying Qualities of Fly-Powered Aircraft." And he means horse-fly powered.
      Presented at the recent Sixth Annual Technical Mini-Symposium of the American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics, his paper was sandwiched between a couple of authentic technical papers during the University of Texas at Arlington.
      The paper was maxi-fun and mini-technology. And it was the subject of a very humorous article by Nancy Webman in the Feb. 25 issue of the Fort Worth Star-Telegram. The writer is the wife of Ken Webman, Vought maintainability engineer, and knows a technical paper from a non-technical one.
      Emmick explained that his "fly-paper" was the result of a $5 bet made with fellow engineers while he was on loan from Vought to Boeing-Seattle. In an after-hours discussion about model aircraft, he mentioned that he had once made a fly-powered airplane when he was a youngster.
      He was challenged. The bet was on. Specifications were left up in the air. But to win the bet, his fly-powered aircraft had to be airborne for at least 15 seconds.
       He chose single-engine configuration because multi-engine fly-powered aircraft have a tendency to fly off in all directions.
      Other technical decisions were more difficult. He solved his engine source problem by visiting a stable in the Seattle area. He used thinly-sliced balsa wood for the wings.
 

      The first plane he made, he told the reporter, was too small. With "engine" attached, it was nose-heavy. His second effort had a tendency to buzz off, then stall or crash into something.
      He went to the tandem wing, so that his "engine" would be near the center of gravity.
      A major technical problem was engine "fuel" and he found that his horse flies liked honey.
      An even bigger headache was engine mounting. He tried freezing the flies so they would hold still for the attaching process. That didn't work. He tried methyl chloroform, but he told Webman that the ether "gave it amnesia, I guess. It would come to, walk around, but it wouldn't flap its wings."
      A mixture of wart remover and ether solved the problem. While the fly was asleep, he'd turn it upside down and glue the fly's body to the balsa structure with model airplane glue.
      He lost a few engines in his experiments.
      Webman's Star-Telegram story said the bet-winning flyoff (Emmick's term) was a real success. The first flight was brief; the next one outside Emmick's apartment complex lasted 90 seconds; the next one three minutes, and a later one buzzed around for five minutes. Obviously the "engine" was getting broken in.
      "But,"  Webman   wrote,   "tragedy marred the historic event. The next day the fly flew four times at Boeing during Emmick's lunch hour. But that evening, it   passed  away."
      Emmick, now back at Vought, is getting all sorts of suggestions about extending mean time between failure for "one-horse-fly power engines."
      But, he said, the hardest part of the entire project "was writing a technical paper with a straight face."
 

Annual symposium draws international flight engineers

      Several company personnel will have key roles in the Ninth Annual Symposium, Society of Flight Test Engineers, in early October.
      The symposium will attract about 150 engineers from across the U.S., and reservations have come in from Canada, Sweden, West Germany and Israel.
      The meetings will be held at the Rodeway Inn at Arlington Oct. 4-6, with the society's North Texas Chapter serving as host.
      Tom Hiloski, Vought flight test engineer, is president of the host chapter. Walt Schaeper was in charge of selection of technical papers and their presentations.
      Papers by company personnel, all on Friday, Oct. 6, include: Don Emmick on "Design Developments Leading to Improved Flying Qualities of Fly Powered Aircraft," described by Hiloski as both humorous and containing technical material of value in flight test; L. E. Pearson presenting "ALVRJ Flight Test Program Summary" and Frank Liberato on "The Role of the Engineer in Product Liability."
      Other technical papers will be given by military and civilian test engineers, including NASA. Lyman Josephs, director of YF-16 programs for General Dynamics Corp., will be the keynote speaker at 8 a.m. Thursday, Oct. 4, and the symposium will close with an annual banquet Friday night, with U.S. Representative Dale Milford as speaker. Milford is a former U.S. Air Force test pilot and serves as chairman of the House committee on science and technology for transportation and aviation.
      Several companies, including Vought, General Dynamics and Bell Helicopter, will have displays at the symposium.