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FRANK ALLEN CLEVELAND 1923-1983 ANONYMOUS TO CHRONICLE ADEQUATELY the contributions Frank Allen Cleveland has made to the nation and to his profession one immecliately recognizes the necessity to talk to many people. Al, as he was known to his associates, brought to each new engineering responsibility a talent that is all too rare in oth- erwise accomplished engineers he listened well. Using this ability in his fielcI of aeronautical research and design clevel- opment, he sought and made welcome the contributions of a growing host of specialists as each new system concept came . ~ Into being. In today's florid of ever more extensive systems, his asso- ciates miss Al Cleveland most sorely. All remember his con- tinually eager approach to each new challenge and the life full of accomplishments that they shared with him. At his cleath on August 12, 1983, which was attributed to complications stemming from open-heart surgery, Al was sixty years old ant! appeared to be still ascending to the peak of his high-performance potential. He began his career by attending Stanford University where he earned an A.B. in mechanical engineering in 1943 and a master's degree in aeronautical engineering a year later. His outstanding record at Stanford was recognized by his election to Tau Beta Pi. Although he was born in Dayton, Ohio, on January 3l, 1923, Al spent a good part of his "growing up" in Ma(lera, 81
82 MEMORIAL TRIBUTES California; thus it was somewhat surprising that he selected the Lewis Research Center of the National Advisory Com- mittee for Aeronautics (now the National Aeronautics and Space Administration) as his first technical home. It is likely that the facilities and remarkable reputation of this labora- tory attracted him, as did the challenge of studying and par- ticipating in the emerging development of turbine engines for aircraft. (One of his first papers dealt with the use of afterburners for turbojets in the years when even the engines themselves were novelties.) Following approximately two years at the Lewis Research Center, Al joined Lockheed as an aerodynamicist with early assignments in the advanced design department. He imme- diately demonstrated his eager, almost compulsive dectica- tion to the use of the most advanced state-of-the-art tech- niques, whether they anoliec! to the products themselves or J --Al- - 1- to the techniques for analyzing product capabilities. During this period at Lockheed, Cleveland was the only aerodynamicist assigned to one of its proposal programs whose particular requirement was to provide a recoverable pilotless flying test bed for the ramjet being developed for the Bomarc missile. The ramjet concept fit well with Al's ex- perience at Lewis, but the airframe design and the optimi- zation of the airframe elements intrigued him even more. They gave him a chance to try out several relatively primitive analytical techniques, many of them his own, involving the use of early computers for aid in optimization. He was undaunted by his first "computer" conclusion that his small test vehicle should have 7,000 external fuel tanks! Once his tentative programming was properly sorted out and he had survived the joshing of his associates, his concep- tual contributions proved to be solid, and the test vehicle be- came an outstanding success. The program flew 100 test flights using approximately a dozen vehicles all of which obtained ramjet data near Mach 3. One of the flights actually exceeded Mach 4 at approximately 100,000 feet of altitude and properly recovered itself no small feat, considering all of these flights occurred before the end of 1951.
FRANK ALLEN CLEVELAND 83 Al Cleveland's growing systems consciousness and concep- tual acumen lee! to his assignment as program manager of the successful competition and following studies for the Air Force to explore nuclear power for bombardment aircraft. These studies were initially carried on in Lockheed's Bur- bank facilities; they were later transferred to the new division established in Marietta, Georgia. Cleveland transferred to the Georgia plant in 1956 to be the pioneering chief of ad- vanced design, and the Air Force nuclear-powered aircraft study transferred with him. At the Georgia plant, Al initiated the buildup of an excep- tionally creative advanced aircraft design and technical team, a team that won almost every major competitive proposal ef- fort it engaged in during the late 1950s through the 1960s. Under his stewardship, the Lockheed-Georgia Company won design, development, manufacturing, and test programs for the following: · Utility Four-engine let Aircraft Program, U.S. Air Force This program was later converted to the develop- ment of the commercial TetStar based on an original twin- engine prototype cleveloped in Burbank. · C- 14 ~ Logistic Transport Program This aircraft was the first all-Georgia design. To maintain continuity and the proper technical attention, Cleveland was asked to assume responsibility as assistant chief engineer of the company and engineering program manager. By almost any exacting stan- clards, the management of the program and the successful fulfillment of all its technical requirements attest to the ex- cellence of Al's meticulous attention to the total system. The still growing and increasingly outstanding record of the C- 141 in its service to the Air Force reinforces the conviction that Al did his part extremely well. All agree that it was his airplane. · XV4A VIOL Hummingbird Research Program This test vehicle demonstrated the feasibility of an augmented thrust, vertical-rising jet aircraft before the successful direct- lift Harrier was demonstrated in England.
84 MEMORIAL TRIBUTES · C-5A Heavy Logistic Transport Program The C-5A, despite its impenetrable problems with the procurement sys- tem, was a nearly perfect technical solution for the massive collection of requirements it was supposed to meet. This air- plane was also the product of Clevelancl's advanced design activities. As a result of its new reincarnation for the Air Force, it will finally serve the nation at the performance level made possible by his original design. Yet perhaps Clevelancl's greatest talent, which was fully demonstrates! cluring the Georgia period of his career and certainly recognized by many who continue in the aerospace field today, was his ability to select, inspire, and train key sub- ordinates, many of whom have moved on to substantial ca- reers of their own. Based on his contributions at the Georgia plant, Al Cleve- land was promoted to the corporate position of vice- president of engineering to oversee the quality of effort and enhance the creativity of all Lockheed engineers and scien- tists involves! in corporate-wide development programs. In addition, it was his task to evaluate the total engineering tem- per ant! capability of the staff. By his own volition, he ex- tended this responsibility to inclucle an assessment of the contributions that the corporation and its technical execu- tives were making in support of the educational institutions that were producing the next generation of practitioners. All of this fit well with Al's almost constant attention to the vitality of the profession through the American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics (AlAA). There was hardly a time in his whole career that he did not actively support this associationwith particular emphasis on its student branches. He served as chairman of the Los Angeles section of the Institute of Aeronautical Sciences (a predecessor of AlAA) in 1954. He was honored in 1970 by the invitation to deliver the Wright Brothers Lecture to AlAA members. He served as director-at-large, as chairman of the Honors anct Awards Committee (spearheading a complete awards pro- gram overhaul), and as vice-president for technical activities.
FRANK ALLEN CLEVELAND 85 These contributions resulted in his election to the national board of governors, and, in 1978, he became president of AlAA. During his tenure as president, he became even more active with the student branches (a policy determiner! by his own instincts rather than by the normal presiclential respon- sibilities of the institute), anct he expanded substantially the group's activities with international associations having simi- lar goals of technical excellence. Of the many important contributions Al Cleveland macle to Lockheed while vice-presiclent of engineering, the one that will probably have the most lasting impact was his crea- tion of an annual awards program for those engineers throughout the corporation who had made the most notable contribution of icleas, specific tasks well clone, procedures or techniques improved, or dollars saved by some technical ad- vance. Uncler the program, the recipients of the awards from each of Lockheed's divisions are brought to Lockheec! head- quarters as a part of the corporate annual meeting and are introduced to the directors and the stockholders who attend. The effects on the individual who receives the award, the management of the division selecting him, and the corporate management and board are impressive, and they serve as a constant positive reminder to the rest of the organization of its (lepenclence on innovative, alert engineering. Al passed away while serving as Lockheed's corporate vice-president of · . engineering. Al Cleveland was elected to the National Academy of En- gineering in 1980 and almost immediately began to partici- pate in academy activities through the Aeronautics and Space Engineering Board (ASEB) of the National Research Council. He served as chairman of the Military Aviation Pane} cluring the ASEB workshop of 1980, which acictressed NASAs role in aeronautics. He was a member of ASEB from the summer of 198 ~ until his illness prevented him from par- ticipating further in the board's activities. In reliving Clevelan(l's approach to each new task with those who were closely involved with him, one senses a uni- versal awe of his enthusiastic immersion in the problem at
86 MEMORIAL TRIBUTES hand. Yet this quality was not only a technical drive; it also included many social endeavors. He sang in his church choir and debated his divergent views of the church creed with his minister. His wife Freddie, a small-boat sailor of national cal- iber, involved him in racing. The yacht club has yet to find a peer for planning, schecluling, and operating a weekend rac- ing schedule. The universal description of his approach contains such words as complete dedication, penetration in depth, objectiv- ity, ability to listen, fair but not precipitous judgment, initia- tive in giving credit where it was deserved, and an apparently infinite capability for accepting and understanding details. Impressive as this was, it was not an overbearing talent; his humor, consideration, and, above all, objective listening brought out the very best in all who had tasks to perform with him. Al Clevelanc] was an engineer in the broadest sense; he showed the technical community and the world how to im- plement concepts that required technical talents from a mul- titude of disciplines. He left the aerospace world with a leg- acy of how to get the job done that will stand as a brilliant goal for all those who follow. People who have known and worked with Al Cleveland are grateful beyond measure for the experience.
