User:Steven Harsey/sandbox/Duane Torrance McRuer

'Bold text'Bold text“Overview”

Duane Torrance McRuer

Duane McRuer (1926 - 2007), as a youngster had two pair of boyhood heroes. The first were Wilbur and Orville Wright and much like Wilbur he was a voracious reader of just about anything. The others were Lewis and Clark whose courage and exploration of the unknown inspired him with intense curiosity to find joy in acquiring knowledge. His formal education was as an electrical engineer, acquiring his Master’s degree at The California Institute of Technology. But he was much more than an electrical engineer. He was a mathematician, an environmentalist, a mountaineer, a scientist and more, who could have serious academic discussions on nearly any subject - anthropology, art, history, literature, entertainment, sports, etc. He remembered names, dates and places from antiquity through modern day. It was often said that “Mac” as he was known by his family, friends, and associates, knew “everything about everything.”

He spent most of his adult life developing new ways to control aircraft and spacecraft stability in flight and in the mountains, summiting the all of the highest in the Sierra Nevada mountains as well as all of the local Southern California Coast range and desert peaks.

“Education”

He recalled in his video biography, recorded in 2005, reading up to 10 books a week from subjects on “just about anything,” after his family moved to Los Angeles when he was 10 years old living adjacent to the USC campus, Exposition Park, and within 2 blocks of a city library. Most days on his walk home from school he would go into the museum in Exposition Park that at the time housed the County Museum of Art (now at the LACMA), the Natural History Museum including a collection of paleolithic dinosaur skeletons (now at the Page Museum, and the History Museum, being particularly attracted to a medieval set of armor. His quest for knowledge never waned.  He  always insisted on reading the descriptions on every display on each of his many museum visits around the world.

His father, John Torrance McRuer and his mother, Ruth Inez Bartlett were graduates of Park College in Park City, Missouri in 1910, she being the youngest in the class and he being the eldest. John, who went by Torrance (his mother’s maiden name), later graduated with a Master’s Degree in Education from Stanford, worked in education all of his professional life, as an instructor and administrator. Ruth played the major role in developing Duane’s pursuit of everything academic by encouraging him to study and read. It could be said, that “acquiring more education and knowledge” was the never-ending goal of his life.

“Cal Tech to M.I.T”

Duane attended the California Institute of Technology graduating with a Master’s of Science in Electrical Engineering in 1948, while also serving in the U.S. Navy during World War II. After retiring in 1993 from System’s Technology Incorporated, the company he co-founded in 1955, he served as the Jerome Clarke Hunsaker Professor of Aeronautical Engineering at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Between Cal Tech and M.I.T. and beyond he had an illustrious career in his two most profound passions, aeronautics and mountaineering.

“Career Beginnings – Northrup Aircraft – Hawthorne, California”

Upon graduating from Cal Tech, he went to work for Northrup Aircraft and quickly was recognized for his developing expertise in flight control and was mentored and befriended personally by John K. “Jack” Northrup, a friendship that lasted throughout Mr. Northrup’s life.

As aircraft became larger, heavier, and faster after World War II, hydraulic powered control systems were needed. McRuer’s understanding of the related control problem and the mathematics involved, put him on the fast track at Northrup, where he quickly became the Technology Chief of Flight Controls.

Duane played a key role in flight control developments for Northrup’s N9MB Flying Wing, the forerunner of the U.S. Air Force's B-2 Bomber, having several technical papers on the subject published. His work on the human interaction with flight control systems earned him awards from multiple professional associations, and recognition from industry leaders.

“Founder – Systems Technology Inc.”

McRuer along with his wife, Betty, and long-time fellow engineer at Northrup, Irving Ashkenas, co-founded Systems Technology Incorporated in Hawthorne, California in 1955. Top-tier engineers eagerly joined STI, working as research and development consultants to the aircraft and later aerospace industries. Later contracts came from both the private and public sector when needing the talents of the STI engineers to study human behavior and dynamic systems. Vehicle studies were no longer limited to flying machines and included automobiles, trucks and military vehicles. STI’s reputation for what became known as manual control theory became known beyond the borders of the United States as McRuer traveled to Israel, Russia, and other European nations delivering professional presentations. He was frequently invited to speak at professional meeting and symposiums around the world.

“McRuer’s Law,” also known as the “Crossover Model,” a mathematical model of pilots and drivers, led to the design of vehicles with improved performance, while at the same time making them safer and easier to operate. McRuer’s Law being fundamental will always be applicable. (see tribute to Duane McRuer, March 2007 by David Klyde at the Aerospace Control and Guidance Systems Committee in Boulder, Colorado given 2 months after McRuer’s death). http://www.acgsc.org/proceedings.php?agenda_id=290&mtg_id=12

Duane co-authored the book titled "Aircraft Dynamics and Automatic Control" with Dunstan Graham, of Princeton University, along with Irving Ashkenas, that continues to be widely used as a graduate level text. With Dunstan Graham, he also co-authored Analysis of Nonlinear Control Systems.

He was an advisor to NASA on the flight control system of the Space Shuttle and later on the redesign of the International Space Station while serving on the NASA Advisory Council. His career included being elected a Fellow for the Electrical and Electronic Engineers in 1967, A Fellow of the American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics in 1973, a Fellow of the Society of Automotive Engineers in 1977, and a member of the National Academy of Engineering in 1988. In 1983 he was given a Cal Tech Distinguished Alumnus Award.

"Duane McRuer – Mountaineer"

As a young boy living in California’s Central Valley, Duane and his father spent many weekends and family vacations in Yosemite and General Grant (today’s King’s Canyon) National Parks. His love of the mountains lasted his entire life and he was climbing in the Sierra Nevada mountains into his 80th year.

Besides his many engineering accomplishments, McRuer loved the outdoors, especially the mountains. He joined the Sierra Club in 1962, and was active in the local Angeles chapter. He served as the Chair of the Sierra Peaks Section in 1976. He recognized the need for better trained leaders guiding fellow hikers and mountaineers and wrote the Sierra Club Leadership Reference Book, and edited future versions.that served as a model for the entire Sierra Club, leading to a set of standards to be a Sierra Club Certified Leader. While doing so he led and taught many of the snow, rock, and navigation training classes

By 1985 he had climbed all of the 297 mountains on the Sierra Peaks list, later climbing the 97 mountains on the Desert Peaks list two times. He was awarded the Angeles Chapter Hundred Peaks Section "Phil Bernay's Service Award" in 1973, the Angeles Chapter Life Long Service Award in 1998 the Hundred Peaks Section John Backus Leadership Award. The National Sierra Club awarded McRuer the Oliver Kehrlein Award for Outstanding Leadership in 1997.

Duane's pursuit of "list finishing" included going to the high point of 49 states in the U.S., only missing Mt. McKinley in Alaska.

"References"

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dutch_roll https://caltech.edu https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jack_Northrop Johnston, Donald J. and Duane T. McRuer 1977. Investigation of Limb-Sidestick Dynamic Interaction with Roll Control, Jour. of Aircraft, Vol. 10, No 2, pp. 178-186 Klyde, David, Duane McRuer, and Thomas Myers 1995. Unified Pilot-Induced Oscillation Theory. Vol I: PIO Analysis with Linear and Nonlinear Effective Vehicle Characteristics, Including Rate Limiting, Report No. WL-TR 96-3208, Wright Patterson A. F. Ohio, Wright Laboratory. McRuer, Duane T. 1950 The Flying Wing’s Electronic Tail, Honeywell Flight Lines, Vol. 1, No. 2, pp 6,7. McRuer, Duane T. 2001. Private Correspondence. McRuer, Duane T. and Donald E. Johnston 1975. Flight Control System Properties and Problems, Vol I, NASA CR 2500. McRuer Duane T. and Thomas T. Myers 1988. Advanced Piloted Aircraft Flight Control System Design Methodology, Vol I: Knowledge Base, NASA CR 181726 McRuer, D and R. L. Stapleford 1963. Sensitivity and Modal REsponse for Single Loop and Multiloop Systems, ASD-TR-62-812. McRuer, Duane, Irving L Askenas and Dunstan Graham 1973. Aircraft Dynamics and Automatic Control, Princeton, NJ: Princeton U. Press, pp 135-153 McRuer, Duane T., Donald E. Johnson, and Thomas T. Myers 1985. A Perspectivre on Superaugmented Flight Control: Advantages and Problems, Active Control Systems - Review, Evaluation and Projections, AGARD CP 384 Myers, Thomas, Duane McRuer, and Donald E. Johnson 1984. Flying Qualities and Control System Characteristics for Superaugmented Aircraft, NASA CR 170419 McRuer, Duane T. 1973. Human Operator System and Subsystem Dynamic Characteristics, in Regluation and Control in Physiological Systems, Pittsburgh, PA: Instr. Soc. of Amer., 4pp230-235. McRuer, Duane T. 1973. Development of Pilot-in-the-Loop Analysis, Jour. of Aircraft, Vol. 10, No 9, pp 515-524. McRuer, Duane T. 1988. Pilot Modeling, in Advances in Flying Qualities, AGARD Lecture Series ls-157. McRuer, Duane T. 1990. Pilot-Vehicle Analysis of Multiaxs Tasks, Jour. of Guidance, Vol 13, No. 2 pp. 348-355 McRuer, Duane T. 1992. Human Dynamics and Pilot-Induced Oscillations, 22nd Minta Martin Lecture, MIT. McRuer, Duane T. 1994. Pilot-Induced Oscillations and Human Dynamics Behavior, NASA CR 4683 McRuer, Duane T., (chair) 1997. Report of the Committee of the Effects of Aircraft-Pilot Coupling on Flight Safety, Washington DC: National Archies Press. McRuer, Duane T. and E. S. Krendel 1974. Mathematical Models of Pilot Behavior, AGARDograph. No. 188. McRuer, Duane T. and David ik. Schmidt 1990. Pilot-Vehicle Analysis of Mulit-Axis Task, Jour. of Guidance Control and Dynamics, Vol. 13, No. 2. p. 348-355 McRuer, Duane T. et al. 1990. Pilot Modeling for Flying Qualities Applications, Minimum Flying Qualities, Vol iI, WRDC-TR-89-3125. http://www.csdy.umn.edu/acgsc/Meeting_99/General%20Session/Abstracts/STI_DTM_TributeMarch07.PDF http://www.systemstech.com/company/history/a-tribute-to-duane-t-mcruer/ https://www.nap.edu/read/13338/chapter/34 https://press.princeton.edu/titles/1501.html https://www.amazon.com/Aircraft-Dynamics-Automatic-Control-Princeton/dp/0691600384 https://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/aircraft-dynamics-and-automatic-control-duane-t-mcruer/1003068361 https://www.researchgate.net/scientific-contributions/2079753171_Duane_T_Mcruer https://www.researchgate.net/scientific-contributions/5414961_Duane_T_McRuer http://ccst.us/news/2007/20070202mcruer.php https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/Aircraft-Dynamics-and-Automatic-Control-by-Duane-T-McRuer-English-Hardcover-B-/282755458172 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jerome_C._Hunsaker_Visiting_Professor_of_Aerospace_Systems https://prabook.com/web/duane.mcruer/459193 https://books.google.com/books?id=dEReAgAAQBAJ&pg=PA175&lpg=PA175&dq=duane+t+mcruer&source=bl&ots=gh7a5NCdox&sig=3kytUMCDz1ggaCFMsV1VYbus0ig&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwjs5p_AndjZAhVJ4IMKHcnyBnw4FBDoAQg-MAQ#v=onepage&q=duane%20t%20mcruer&f=false http://e.guigon.free.fr/rsc/article/McRuerEtAl68.pdf https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/0016003260902453 https://angeles.sierraclub.org/about_us/chapter_history/great_leaders/leaders_l_r https://www.sierraclub.org/angeles/sierra-peaks/list-completions