Chuck Straight - Straight Shootin’

After 53 years in aviation maintenance, Chuck Straight can tell you a thing or two about jet engines. This industry veteran received the Charles Taylor Master Mechanic Award at the Aviall Symposium in West Palm Beach, Florida on March 2, 2005. He seems to be the embodiment of the spirit of that award, which is given, according to the FAA, to those mechanics who have worked in aviation maintenance for 50 or more years and are the mechanics who have brought the aviation industry forward into the 21st century.

Straight got interested in aviation as a kid and joined the Civil Air Patrol at the Lantana, Florida airport. He learned a great deal in the CAP and enjoyed that experience so much that as he began to think about his career choices he was naturally drawn to aviation. Chuck approached some military recruiters and was thrilled to learn that his CAP experience would be of benefit to him in more ways than one. "It got me an extra stripe," he said, still delighted decades later.

Straight liked what he heard from the Navy and signed up. "I was definitely thinking aviation when I was talking to the recruiter," Straight said. "I was thinking engine, but they separated the recruits and I was chosen as a structural mechanic." He went to work on the high-tech Navy fighters of the day such as the F3H Demon and the A3D Skywarrior. He was stationed at Miramar in San Diego, California and also at Whidbey Island, Washington. During his years in the Navy he did cruises on two different aircraft carriers, the U. S. S. Lexington, and the U. S. S. Midway. Straight mentioned his favorite: "I did a Far East cruise to Japan."

When he finished his commitment to the Navy he entered the Northrop Institute of Technology. Straight realized that in the civilian world he would need an A&P certificate, and he completed the program at Northrop and earned his A&P.

Straight's first job outside the Navy and school was with Pratt & Whitney. Straight had always wanted to be an engine man, and now he got his chance. He was hired into a secret developmental program and had to get a secret clearance to begin working. As it turned out, it was the development of the engine for the SR71. "It was highly secret. This was the first engine developed to run in atmospheric conditions of 800 degrees Fahrenheit. Everything on it was stainless steel," he said.

Being part of that program was exciting but looking back on it he wondered how they progressed so quickly. "All the instrumentation was analog or strain gages. There were no computers. We would make an adjustment, run the engine for 50 hours, and take data," he said. Then the engineers would look at the data and come back to the test stands with adjustments, changes, and improvements to the engine. "We had eleven engines for development. They would come up with a fix and we would tear it down, put it in the engine, and test it again," he said.

The engine was so big and powerful, Straight said, they had to devise a way to start it. "We hooked up four automobile engines to the shaft and used those to start the SR71 engine," he said. "We developed everything: fuel pumps, fuel nozzles, fuel controls, burner cans, and other components." They had a number of sea level test stands and one altitude test stand to simulate different altitudes and atmospheric conditions.

In addition to the SR71 program, Straight also worked on rocket engines like the Atlas Centaur and the Atlas Agena. He spent two years at the Arnold Research Center in Tullahoma, Tennessee doing wind tunnel testing and also helped develop the F-16 and F-15 engines. He said that in the research and development programs he was involved in there was always a close relationship between the mechanics, the engineers, and the customer. Straight said, "R & D is the most interesting thing I've done." He made this observation about how to tell when a project was nearing completion: "You could tell when a project was coming to an end because there would be a layoff." Luckily he survived many of those.

Straight then worked for a number of full-service FBOs and explained the long list of FBOs he worked for in a litany of who bought whom. Currently he is working at General Dynamics Aviation Services in West Palm Beach, Florida with no signs of slowing down.

Straight is an avid scuba diver and has even taught diving. He has been married to his wife Lois for 46 years and is the father of two grown daughters, Julie, a nurse, and Kathy, an eye doctor.

During the last 53 years (30 as a certificated mechanic) Chuck Straight helped to develop cutting-edge engines in the same way that Charles Taylor did for the Wright Brothers. So it is fitting for the FAA to honor him with the Charles Taylor Master Mechanic Award. Congratulations! -- By Joy Finnegan