Jim Daue's Influence On The Aviation Industry

Influence on the Airplane Industry
My Grandfather Jim Daues’s earliest memories of airplanes go all the way back to elementary school. His first experiences with airplanes were making and flying model airplanes. After elementary school he went on to Saint Mary’s High School, an all boys, Catholic school in Saint Louis, Missouri. Recently, he had his 61st reunion; his classmates remembered him specifically for his models. Flying these models was his main hobby. After high school he went to Park’s College, now part of Saint Louis University, and got a degree in aerodynamics. After school, he went to work at Mcdonnell Douglas in 1957 then his career took off. He worked on many different types of airplanes throughout his career and helped encourage the use of Computer Aided Design.
Jim had a very long career in the airplane industry. Throughout the 35 years that he worked for

Mcdonnell Douglas he worked on multiple airplanes. The first airplane he worked on was the F4 Phantom, “one of the most versatile fighters ever built”(Boeing). When he worked in the F4, he was a structural designer. For this specific plane, he worked on the design of the pilot escape system and the cockpit floor. The F4 Phantom saw combat in many wars including Vietnam and Korea. The F4 was so successful, the company decided to produce different versions of the aircraft. Jim worked on the reconnaissance version of the F4. This aircraft flew over enemy countries and took pictures of the ground. The plane was very influential in discovering the missiles that were hidden in Cuba, leading to the Cuban Missile Crisis.
After the F4 project he was assigned to design a new inlet for the F15 jet. He had to design in inlet that would slow down air, so that it would be moving less than the speed of sound. The system he designed had to adjust for the speed of the aircraft and the angle it was flying. His solution was to create an inlet system that pivoted. This system was the first of its kind. The system was filed for patent on February 17, 1969 (Patent). Another plane he worked on was the Harrier. The Harrier used Vertical takeoff, which was very unusual for fighter jets. To do this the Harrier “has one jet engine (The Pegasus) it has four nozzles that direct the jet engine thrust downwards for vertical lift”(The Harrier). This is in contrast to the conventional takeoff method of going down a runway. All of these airplanes that my grandfather worked on were influential in wars such as Vietnam, Korea, Afghanistan, and the Gulf War.
Not only did Jim influence specific airplanes, he also helped change the way airplanes are designed and produced. When he was working on the F15’s inlet system, he had to design the system do all the calculations by hand. He had to use a lot of trigonometry. When doing these calculations, mistakes are bound to be made. In an effort to minimize these calculation mistakes McDonnell Douglas wanted to create a computer program that would would do the calculations for the designer. When he started using the system he used it to check the calculations he had already done. The system proved to be very successful and he was very successful too. One of the Vice Presidents realized that he had a talent with this system, and moved him to work on the creation of these systems. My grandfather’s job on this project was to make the program work for engineers, “ It was my job to make sure the people who were developing it the way a design engineer would want it to work”(Daues). He was very influential in how the program worked and why the design programs were so successful. Had he not done his job, engineers may not have use the computer program, because it would have been no benefit to them. He was able to make sure the program would run the way the end users wanted it to.
While he was working on the project in 1974, the program creators made a major breakthrough.

They were able to make the program function in three dimensions. This made it so the engineers would be able to design the final product in three dimensions. This was a major change in the entire design process. Before this engineers had to design everything in two dimensional drawings. Now they could do everything three dimensionally. This was supposed to make their jobs easier than in the past, but “Engineers, they don’t like change”(Daues). The engineers had been doing their jobs for years in two dimensions, and had been just fine. To them there was no reason to change the system, because if “it ain’t broke, don’t fix it.” If engineers were going to use this system, they would not only have to change the way they designed, but also change the way they think. Jim’s job was to convince them to change, “The hardest job I had was to teach engineers...and train them to think in three dimensions”(Daues). It took multiple years to finally convince most engineers to go along with the new way of

thinking.
Jim also influenced the mock up stage of the design of an aircraft. The purpose of a mock up is to make a model for all the controls, wiring, pipes, etc. A mock up is similar to a prototype. It is meant to help the designers plan out the insides of the aircraft. The traditional mockup is made of cheaper materials and unnecessary parts are left out. This is so that the engineers can see a full size model of the plane, but keep the production of the model at a reasonable cost. While McDonnell Douglas was designing the Harrier Jet, the company wanted the designers to create the mock up using three dimensional software instead of a physical mock up. This was the first time that this had been done in the airplane industry. Not only was this much more convenient for the designers, but it also saved McDonnell Douglas from spending three million dollars on a physical mock up. Even with these advantages, engineers did not want to change to the new system, because “Engineers, they don’t like change”(Daues). My Grandfather knew the person who was the vice president of the F18 project, and he tried to convince him to use the digital mock ups, but he refused to use them. During the design of the aircraft, engineers were having trouble making parts fit into the plane correctly. The vice president of the project solved this problem by mandating that engineers use the digital mock up.
My grandfather, Jim, had a very influential career in the aeronautics industry. He worked on airplanes such as the Harrier, F18, and F4. His biggest success was changing the way engineers thought. He had to convince engineers at McDonnell Douglas to think in three dimensions instead of two. He also helped encourage the use of electronic mock ups instead of physical mock ups, He was remembered by his peers as, “the guy who revolutionized design”(Daues).