Flight:
For those of you that are not aware as yet;
Will post arrangements as soon as they are available.
Tom Gator 851
119th Assault Helicopter Company veteran Robert R. "Bob" Taylor of Fort Worth, Texas passed away yesterday morning, Sunday, December 18, 2011.
His wife Anna called a short while ago with the sad news. Bob's funeral is planned for Laurel Land Dallas Funeral Home at 10:00AM on Tuesday, December 27th, followed by burial at
Grand Prairie Dallas National Cemetery at 12:30PM the same day.
I may have misunderstood Anna, but the website for the funeral home is http://www.laurellanddallas.com/, and if you do not find details posted at that site shortly, check
http://www.laurellandfortworth.com/ . I am not sure which it is.
Please pass the word to others who would want to know. Bob had quite a run, we'll miss him.
Bob "Doc" Kilpatrick
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Robert R. Taylor,
Mr. Taylor served as a Crew Systems Design engineer in the Systems Integration Department of Bell Helicopter Textron, Ft. Worth, Texas, until his retirement as Principal Engineer in Dec. 2000. Mr. Taylor's accomplishments include:
Design engineer for the man-machine interface for the Army Digital Avionics System (ADAS), one of the early research "glass" cockpits, Lead Display Analyst and a senior engineer in the design of the OH-58D cockpit and the display symbology. The OH-58D was the first production military helicopter with a computer display cockpit. Mr. Taylor received a patent for a NVG compatible landing light for efforts during this program.
He served as the lead analyst and a research designer as part of the Army Rotorcraft Technology Insertion (ARTI) research program, a predecessor research program that led to the development of the US Army LHX. Mr. Taylor worked various systems on the MV-22 and CV-22 Tilt Rotor and served as team leader of the Communications Working Group. He was also a team member on the digital map, flight display, and electronics warfare design teams. During the AH-1 Cobra Upgrade Program (AH-1Z Super Cobra), Mr. Taylor served as the engineering team leader of the communications system man-machine interface design team for system functions designs , display functions and symbology and as working group leader of the Electronics Warfare Systems man-machine interface design working group. Mr. Taylor's last working assignment at Bell Helicopter was as a research engineer working with NASA, the U.S. Army, DARPA, and other federal agencies to develop “pathway in the sky” and synthetic vision technology and symbology. Beginning in late 1998, as the co-chair of the Government/ Industry working group, he helped develop symbology and display standardization recommendations for national standards in cockpit displays. As part of the program, he researched the industry and brought onboard, systems and personnel that could be used as springboards to provide 21st century flight and navigation systems and techniques for helicopter operations.
Prior to joining Bell Helicopter in 1977, Mr. Taylor served 21 years in the U.S. Military (Army) with final military assignments as a U.S. Army Acceptance Test Pilot at Bell Helicopter in Fort Worth, Texas (1970-1977) following duty as a combat aviator (2+ tours) in Vietnam. His awards include the Bronze Star Medal, Meritorious Service Medal, Air Medal, Commendation Medal, Vietnam Campaign Medal with 6 stars, and various other US and foreign awards.
Mr. Taylor is author or co-author of several technical papers on the subject of Human Factors Engineering, Cockpit Design, Electro- Optics and, Chemical Warfare Hardening designs. Unclassified portions of his work are published in the American Helicopter Society Journal, SPIE Journal (The International Society for Optical Engineering), the NATO-based Advisory Group for Aerospace Research and Development (AGARD) publications, as well as numerous technical reports at Bell Helicopter.
In addition to technical publications Mr. Taylor has been recognized for providing "significant research" contributions to the condensed aviation history of the Vietnam War entitled "Primer of the Helicopter War” by Charles Holley and Mike Sloniker. He holds a BS degree in Aviation Technology with advanced work in Human Factors engineering.