Aviation pioneer Charles Huron Kaman dies at 91
Charles Huron Kaman, an aviation pioneer who founded Kaman Aerospace Corp., has died. He was 91.
Kaman died Monday, the company said.
Kaman was a 26-year-old engineer when he started Kaman Aircraft Co. in the garage of his mother's Connecticut home in 1945 with $2,000 from two friends. He was chief executive from 1945 to 1999.
He started the company to demonstrate a rotor concept he devised to make helicopters more stable and easier to fly. The company, based in Bloomfield, Conn., has been credited with breakthroughs, including the first gas turbine-powered helicopter, the first twin-turbine-powered helicopter and the first remotely controlled helicopter.
In 1996 President Clinton awarded Kaman the National Medal of Technology, the nation's highest recognition for contributions to technical excellence. A year later he received the National Aeronautic Assn.'s Wright Brothers Memorial Trophy in recognition of his contributions to American aviation.
--Associated Press
We wish to offer our most sincere and heartfelt condolences to the immediate family, all other relatives, business associates and lifelong friends of CHARLES KAMAN upon his departure from the scene ...
He was yet another who was way ahead of his time all through the years, one of the truly great aeronautical pioneers in worldwide aviation history ...
He shall be fondly remembered forever by all those who worked with him and knew him.
Posted by: CLAY MARSTON | 02/06/2011 at 06:40 AM