2015 Issue

30 W HY ARE THERE no engineer action figures in the toy depart- ments? The world owes a great deal to engineers. They are the driving force in tech- nological advancement and improvements to everyone’s standard of living. Consider that a great doctor may save a few lives every week, depending on the right circumstances. But a bio engineer’s new invention will save thousands each day. An aide worker could help improve a ru- ral village crop yield incrementally. A civil engineer can save the whole village with a dependable water supply. A linesman can keep electrical power com- ing to your house under all conditions. An electrical engineer can ensure the power control systems seldom fail and can come back on line rapidly when they do fail. Well, you get the idea. But we never see engineer action figures. And that is the fault of popular culture. In popular culture, engineers are always divorced from the action, residing in public imagination, as cerebral pencil chewers hulking over sized D drawings overflow- ing a drafting table. These high priests of technology have all the time and resources required to come up with the next best thing, only being rushed on occasion by marketeers or middle managers. In fact, in the public mind, the engineer is considered too cerebral for action ad- ventures. This is best exemplified by Dr. Morbius’ comments to Commander Adams in “For- bidden Planet” after taking the Krell test of intelligence: “It’s all right, sir. A commanding officer doesn’t need brains. Just a good loud voice, huh?” Even in Star Trek, the bastion of tech- nobabble, the dashing Captain Picard is always looking to his crew for the best ideas. Not a bad approach, but it perpetuates the engineer as scholar, not a scrapper. And Picard is an astrophysicist by training for heaven’s sake! And don’t even get me started on the Secret Service duo, Artemus Gordon and James West. Because James is a made for action, he needs a cerebral sidekick. But I will say that was a bigmissed opportunity to include a woman engineer in the adventure. Just had to spell Artemis correctly. This is a sad and untrue depiction of a noble profession, as this story below illustrates. Thanks to Google and Wikipedia, it is quickly revealed that the word “engineer” harks back to the Medieval Days and refers to a person who operates an engine. An engine, being in this context, a military machine, such as a siege engine. So let us go to the military for our engineer action heroes. Each of our military academies is strong on engineering. For instance, Air Force Academy Cadets who complete a degree in History or Law are still required to take computer programming, calculus, statics & dynamics, and other technical courses. The United StatesMilitary Academy at West Point was originally an engineering school and that tradition continues. Annapolis ensures each midshipman has a strong background in engineering academics. And thesemilitary engineers are expected to not only come upwith tomorrow’s most creative weapon systems, but also operate them — equivalent of yesterday’s siege engines. In the United States Air Force, these clever machines of war are often aerospace plat- forms that serve as delivery systems for bombs, or cameras in the sky, or airborne tankers to inflight refuel the other airborne platforms. These platforms require pilots. So it was that upon graduating from the United States Air Force Academy in 1976 with a degree in Astronautical Engineering, my first assignment was KC-135 Strato- Tanker Pilot. Oh, yes. I am about to place myself in the role of “action figure”! Live with it. In the late 1970’s, I was a rookie co-pilot on a crew that was flying over to RAF Milden- hall in East Anglia, England to support the European Tanker Task Force. We stopped at Pease AFB, New Hampshire, to join up with a four-ship of F-4s who were also deploying to Europe. We were to be their flying gas station for the journey over the frigid North Atlantic. When I say that we flew over there together. We were very, very close together. The Engineer as an Action Figure By Charles Vono