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Charles Draper
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Engineer
Recognizing the need to improve pilot flight instrumentation, a young Draper demonstrated his point to a professor who would later become the president of Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Over Boston’s outer harbor, Draper caused the plane that he was piloting to perform stalls and spins. The professor was impressed with Draper’s ideas about the needed improvements but he never flew with Draper again.
- Earned his pilot license in 1928 and taught courses on aircraft instruments and guidance systems.
- Developed engine pressure, vibration and combustion indicators.
- Received his Ph.D in physics in 1938 and became Director of the Instrumentation Laboratory.
- During World War II he developed gyroscopic guidance and control instruments that were used on guns, bombs, and rockets.
- After the war, he directed development of aircraft guidance systems as well as inertial guidance systems for the Thor, Titan, Polaris, and Poseidon missiles.
- Referred to as the “father of inertial navigation” for evolving the theory, inventing and developing the technology, and leading the effort to use the navigation systems in aircraft, spacecraft and submarines.
- Led the development of the spacecraft guidance systems in the 1960s for NASA’s successful Apollo lunar landing missions and for its orbital astronomical observatory.
- The Instrumentation Laboratory was renamed in his honor in 1970 and he let the development of: the “fly-by-wire aircraft central system, guidance systems for Trident missiles and the Skylab spacecraft, guidance system for the Navistar satellite, guidance system for the space shuttle.
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Biography
Enshrined 1981
1901-1987
After attending the University of Missouri, Draper received a bachelor's degree in psychology from Stanford University in 1922. He then entered the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and enlisted in the Army Air Corps Reserve Officers Training Corps.
After earning a degree in electrochemical engineering at M.I.T. in 1926, Draper received his Army commission and began flight training. Unable to complete the course, he returned to M.I.T. in 1928 and studied fuel flames in engines. After earning a pilot's license and receiving a M.S. degree, he taught courses on aircraft instruments and guidance systems. He also developed engine pressure, vibration and combustion indicators and became director of the instrumentation laboratory. Upon receiving a Ph.D in physics in 1938, he became a full professor. During World War II, Draper developed gyroscopic sights for anti-aircraft guns and warplanes. After the war, he directed development of the Febe stellar inertial and the Spire fully inertial aircraft guidance systems, as well as inertial guidance systems for the Thor, Titan, Polaris and Poseidon, missiles. In the 1960's, he led the development of the spacecraft guidance systems for NASA's successful Apollo lunar landing missions, and for its orbital astronomical observatory. In 1970, the instrumentation laboratory was renamed in his honor and, as its president, he led the development of the "fly-by-wire" aircraft control system and guidance systems for Trident missiles and the Skylab spacecraft. In 1973, he became senior scientist of the independent Charles Stark Draper laboratory and directed the development of guidance systems for the Navstar global positioning satellite, MX missiles and the Space Shuttle.
Born in Windsor, Missouri, October 2nd, 1901, Dr. Draper attended the primary and high schools in that town. His college work began in arts and sciences at the University of Missouri in 1917. In 1919, he entered Stanford University in California and graduated in June 1922, with a bachelor of arts degree in psychology. He entered the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in the Fall of 1922 and had been continuously associated with the Institute until the divestment of the Laboratory on 1 July 1973. He earned three degrees from M.I.T.: a B.S. in electrochemical engineering in 1926, S.M. in 1928 without specification of department, and ScD in physics in 1938. A famous M.I.T. legend is that as a student, Dr. Draper took more courses for credit than anyone in Institute history.
Dr. Draper was a member of several government science advisory groups and served as Chairman of the National Inventors Council. He was the President of the International Academy of Astronautics. His was an Honorary Fellow of the American Institute of the Aeronautical Sciences and the British Institution of Mechanical Engineers; an honorary lifetime member of the Instrument Society of America; he had an honorary fellowship with the British Interplanetary Society and the Royal Aeronautical Society; an honorary member of the German Society for Guidance and Navigation and the British Institute of navigation; a fellow of the American Physical Society, the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, the American Society of Mechanical Engineers, the American Association for the Advancement of Science, the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers, the American Astronautical Society; and a member of the National Academy of Sciences, the American Institute of Consulting Engineers, the Society of Automotive Engineers, the American Ordnance Association, the American Society for Engineering Education, the Massachusetts Society of Professional Engineers, the New York Academy of Sciences, the National Academy of Engineering, past President of the M.I.T. Soaring Society and a member of Sigma XI, Tau Beta Pi and Sigma Alpha Epsilon.
For more information on Charles Draper, you may want to visit these websites:
Virtualology
Draper Laboratories
Info Please
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