NASA Headquarters Oral
History Project
Edited Oral History Transcript
Bertha
M. Ryan
Interviewed by Sandra Johnson & Rebecca Wright
Ridgecrest, California – 13 June 2001
Johnson: Today
is June 13, 2001. This interview with Bertha M. Ryan is being conducted
as part of the NASA Headquarters History Office “Herstory”
Project. The interview is being conducted in Ridgecrest, California,
by Sandra Johnson and Rebecca Wright.
Good morning, Ms. Ryan. Thank you again for taking the time to meet
and discuss with us your experiences while employed with the NASA
Flight Research Center in California. We'd like to begin by gathering
some background information from you. Where are you from originally?
Ryan: Just
outside of Boston, Massachusetts. A town called Newton.
Johnson: You
grew up there. Did you go to school there? Go to high school, all
the way through high school there?
Ryan: I went
to all the Newton schools. Grammar, junior high, and high.
Johnson: Where
did you go to college?
Ryan: Emmanuel
College [Boston, Massachusetts], and then MIT [Massachusetts Institute
of Technology, Cambridge, Massachusetts] for graduate work.
Johnson: Was
this something that you'd always planned to do, or was there some
reason you went to Emmanuel College?
Ryan: I started
liking airplanes at an early age, and so my aim was to do something
in aviation. I had heard that you should know math, so I went to Emmanuel
to study math, and then to get closer to aviation, I went to MIT first
in math, and then switching to aeronautical engineering, as they called
it in those days.
Johnson: So
you started out with a math degree as an undergraduate, and switched
to that. Where did you begin work?
Ryan: Professional
work?
Johnson: Did
you do some other work during college?
Ryan: Yes.
I had to. I worked in a grocery store. In high school I worked in
a so-called war plant, packing and inspecting tubes—Raytheon
[Company], actually. In college, I worked at the school and I worked
in a grocery store. At MIT, I mostly worked full time and went part-time.
Worked first in the math department and then the Aeroelastic and Structures
Research Lab at MIT.
Johnson: And
after graduation?
Ryan: Went
to Douglas [Aircraft Company] in Santa Monica, which no longer exists.
It's now Boeing and it's not in Santa Monica. And then I went to FRC
[NASA Flight Research Center]—Dryden, now. And then the Navy
here at China Lake [California], and I worked for a contractor my
last year to sort of phase out. I'm retired now.
Johnson: At
Douglas, how long were you at Douglas?
Ryan: Four
years, I guess. Went there in early '55 and I left in late '59. I
went in early '56 and late—and I worked in the aerodynamics
research group.
Johnson: How
did you learn about Dryden, or did they recruit you?
Ryan: When
I originally looked for a job at MIT, I wanted to go to Dryden. I'd
heard about their flight test work and all those snazzy airplanes
they worked on and this sort of thing, and the recruiter that was
there at NACA [National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics] at the
time was from Langley [NASA Langley Research Center, Langley, Virginia]
and he said, "You don't want to go to Edwards [Air Force Base,
Edwards, California]. That's way out in the desert. Come work for
Langley." Well, I didn't want to work in Virginia, so I went
to Douglas.
Johnson: So
all along you had that in mind then? You wanted to work for NACA,
to come out in this area?
Ryan: Yes.
Johnson: While
you were in college, is that correct, or right after college, you
built a glider?
Ryan: When
I left back East to come to the West, which would have—let me
see if I can get it right this time—it would have been December
1955 or January 1956. I ordered a sailplane kit [Schweizer SGS 1-26A]
to be delivered in California, and then I built it out here, and flew
it that summer.
Johnson: Where
did you learn to fly?
Ryan: Framingham,
Massachusetts, is where I soloed, and Norwood, Massachusetts, is where
I got my private license.
Johnson: That
was in a regular, normal airplane with an engine?
Ryan: I soloed
in a Taylorcraft [airplane] and I got my private [license] in a Piper
J-3 Cub, and I didn't get introduced to sailplanes until 1950 at MIT.
It was high school when I started flying.
Johnson: So
this is something you've grown up wanting to do all your life?
Ryan: Yes.
Johnson: What
got you interested in flying?
Ryan: I think
back in those days, there was more interest in it because of the things
that people were doing. Of course, [Charles] Lindbergh was a bit before
my time, but Amelia Earhart, I guess, would have been a big influence.
It just seemed like flying was what I wanted to do. I had my first
flight in 1945, when it was still wartime, and so they couldn't give
joy rides. They had to give instruction, and the whole intent of it
was to scare me to death so I'd get my foolishness over with. But
it didn't work. I loved it even more.
Johnson: So
do you feel like you were being discouraged, maybe, because you were
female, or just because of your age?
Ryan: No.
It was my mother that was discouraging me. I didn't find any discouragement
anyplace else. In fact, I sort of started in a fly-by-night outfit,
but when I got into a formal one a couple of years later, she wouldn't
sign for me, and that's why the first place I started with was sort
of a fly-by-night outfit. They didn't mind that they didn't have the
signature, but this more formal place did. The instructor came and
spoke to her and said that it would be a good thing for her to do
and so forth, and talked her into it.
Johnson: And
she agreed sort of willingly?
Ryan: Well,
she agreed. I think it scared her. She was born in 1884, which was
a whole different world. So it was a strange thing for her to have
her daughter do. She had three boys older than I am, but she didn't
think this was the thing for her daughter to do.
[I probably learned to fly and became an engineer partly because of
my mother and the example she gave me. She did not want me to do those
things but she did not stop me. She was a very special woman, having
been widowed with four children ages three to thirteen and then sending
her three sons off to fight in World War II. There are two very special
things she stressed: 1) You can do anything you want if you work hard
enough, and 2) don’t be afraid to be different.]
Johnson: But
you persisted and you got your license. You began your work with NACA—
Ryan: NASA
by the time I joined. I went to work on December 31, 1959, which is
a bad day to go to work for the government. By that time, it was NASA.
Johnson: What
were you doing when you first began?
Ryan: Sonic
boom studies. And then after about a year, I got on to the lifting
body project, which was really a fascinating thing.
Johnson: Can
you give us a little bit of information about the sonic boom studies?
Ryan: There
was some thought they could be used as a weapon by focusing them,
so that they would hit in one place. We actually did some experiments
and broke a few windows or something like that. Just minor stuff.
I guess they eventually decided it wouldn't work. But at the same
time there was a comic strip that was doing this. Made it sort of
funny.
To study the sonic boom, you have to go into flowfield studies and
so forth. And of course, they would be concerned, too, because of
disturbing people with the sonic boom. There was some talk at the
time also about a supersonic transport and if you're flying across
the country supersonically, you're making noise all the way across
the country, and they didn't know if this would be acceptable. So
that was the reason it was important to study sonic booms.
Johnson: You
did that, you said, for about a year?
Ryan: I think
it was about a year, yes, and then I got into the lifting body project.
When [Robert] Dale Reed started it, I think the way he started it
is interesting and typical of NASA in those days.
I know it's a “herstory”, but if you have a chance to
talk to him, you might find it interesting. He had seen these shapes.
They had been tested in wind tunnels, mainly at [NASA] Ames [Research
Center, Moffett Field, California], but some at Langley also, and
got the idea that it would be a good kind of a shape to return from
space in. But nobody thought they could be landed, and so he thought
it would be a good project to build one and see if he could land it.
And so he built a model of one and he built a model tow plane, and
he started flying them in the halls of NASA.
The director at the time was Paul [F.] Bikle, who was a glider pilot
also, and saw this thing going on of a model tow plane towing a lifting
body, and thought it would be a good idea, too, and it grew from there.
And then they actually built one. It was a lightweight one, the M2-F1,
and flew it, and then they built heavyweight ones, M2-F2 and the HL-10,
and dropped them from a B-52, and proved you could land it.
Johnson: How
did you get involved in the project?
Ryan: Actually,
I was the second person assigned to it, although until they started
building the M2-F1, it didn't have that much visibility, but I was
just trying to gather data and so forth. That was about a year after
I went to work there.
Johnson: That's
what you did, you gathered data for them?
Ryan: And
tried to figure out what the data meant, and then as time went on,
we had wind tunnel tests and simulations, as it grew to a bigger project.
And then we compared flight test with wind tunnel with calculations,
which is a very satisfying thing to do, to find out if your calculations
are real.
Johnson: Who
else was involved in this project, besides you and Dale Reed?
Ryan: Very
soon after, when they started the construction of the M2-F1, they
involved [Richard] Dick Eldredge. He's no longer here. The crew chief
was [Orion] Bill Billeter and the pilot was Milt [Milton O.] Thompson.
You're stretching my memory.
Johnson: Was
Harriet [DeVries] Smith involved?
Ryan: Harriet
Smith got involved soon after that, and did a lot of the simulation
work. I have a report where she reports upon some of the simulation
work that was done. And then she got very much involved with the heavyweight
one. I've never been good at names.
Johnson: That's
okay. I identify with you.
Ryan: I can
see the people. Oh, Ken [Kenneth W.] Iliff got very much involved.
I'm trying to think of the other people. I could go get the report
and look up their names.
Johnson: From
some of the research we've done, I read that a gentleman by the name
of Gus Briegleb was the one that was contracted to build the original
body out of wood.
Ryan: Yes.
Gus had a glider operation nearby at El Mirage, California. He's still
alive, but he's in a nursing home, and his sons are still involved
in aviation. He got the contract to build the shell of the M2-F1.
The inside structure, chrome-moly steel tubing, was built at NASA.
And of course, the design was at NASA, with the practical input from
Gus Briegleb and the construction from Gus.
Johnson: Did
you know him?
Ryan: Oh,
very well. I did my flying there, and completed the sailplane there.
I was working on it in a friend's garage in Santa Monica [California],
and then I brought it up to El Mirage for its final construction and
first flight. Flew there a lot for several years, and so did Paul
Bikle, the director at the time, so we knew Gus and his capabilities.
He had designed and built sailplanes, a whole series of them.
Johnson: His
own designs?
Ryan: Yes.
Johnson: So
he was the expert?
Ryan: Very
definitely, very definitely, yes.
Johnson: Going
back to when you first got here, can you tell us a little bit about
your first impressions?
Ryan: Well,
like I said, it was December 31 [1959]. That's a bad day to go to
work for the government, but my impression improved in the following
month. That's probably a bad day to go to work anyplace. [Laughter]
Johnson: The
climate was quite a difference from where you grew up.
Ryan: I'd
been spending weekends in the desert, and wanted to live in the desert.
Johnson: Did
you?
Ryan: Also
it's a dry heat, and when I first moved West, I didn't think I'd like
the heat because I hated it in Boston. If it got above eighty degrees,
I was miserable. And so I thought, "Gee, I don't know how I'm
going to like the desert," and then I discovered I loved it.
Johnson: Where
did you live when you first worked for NASA?
Ryan: Lancaster
[California].
Johnson: So
you lived in Lancaster.
Ryan: I had
an apartment and then I bought a house, and my mother came out to
live with me the last two years of her life there. It was a big change
for her. She had moved from just outside of Boston to Manhattan [New
York], with my brother, and she came directly to the desert.
Johnson: There's
quite a change.
Ryan: She
was probably seventy-six at the time. Big change for her. But she
was adaptable.
Johnson: You
had your own car? Did you drive back and forth?
Ryan: There
was a bus. Sometimes I'd drive, but there was a bus that would go
back and forth, so you'd get on the bus early in the morning and go
to sleep and then an hour later you'd be there, and then you'd go
home by bus. The only problem with that, which was such a joy when
I came here, was that you had to leave exactly at that time, and you'd
be in a meeting, and the meeting would break up because everybody
had to catch the bus. So that was a disadvantage. It was a big joy
here when I am just a few minutes from work and come and go as I please.
Don't have to stick to that bus schedule. But it was nice sleeping
on the bus, too.
Johnson: Have
that extra hour. What were the conditions like when you went to work,
where you worked? Like the buildings you worked in.
Ryan: Well,
it was that main building that's there now that has the airplane out
in front of it, so it was that same building, and the conditions were
fine.
Johnson: They
were? Everything was—
Ryan: Yes.
There was a cafeteria and everything was fine. The people before me
might have something different to say, I'm sure, because conditions
were—
Johnson: Had
improved?
Ryan: I would
imagine. I didn't realize that, but apparently, just before I got
there, there had been a big improvement in all sorts of things, so
I just took it for granted it had always been that way.
Johnson: Were
there very many women engineers beside yourself?
Ryan: Well,
I honestly wasn't that conscious of women versus men, but I believe
Harriet [DeVries Smith] may have been the only one. Now, Betty [Scott]
Love will be able to answer that, but I think Harriet Smith might
have been the only one. Mary Little [Kuhl] had a very strong responsibility
for the computational group, but you'd have to check with Betty Love
to know that, or Sheryll [Goecke Powers]. I think the work she's done
on the book might answer that question for you.
Johnson: So
it really wasn't an issue, even in that time?
Ryan: It wasn't
to me, but I'd been working for quite a few years as an engineer by
that time, so I didn't think it was an issue, at least not to me.
Maybe it was to someone else, but I just wasn't aware of it being
an issue, particularly. It was when I went to Langley on travel one
time.
Johnson: Was
it?
Ryan: Yes.
But other places, it didn't seem to be an issue at all.
Johnson: Was
it something you want to share with us, what happened?
Ryan: I had
gotten into the habit—I'd been going to the wind tunnel tests,
and I'd gotten into the habit of going back in the evenings to see
if there was anything else new or to look at the data and be prepared
for the next day. The first statement I got when I got to Langley
was, "No female works at night." And also, the previous
people that had gone there on travel had been put into the area where
the engineers were, and I was put into the area where the computers
were, and I guess you've gotten the definition of the—
Johnson: Yes.
Ryan: And
while that was nice because they were lovely women, they weren't people
that I could share work discussions with, and so I finally called
back to Edwards and Dale Reed got on the phone and called them and
then things were okay. I guess they just did things differently at
Langley. But I've been there since lots of times and there's no situation
like that now.
Johnson: What
other projects did you work on when you were at NASA? Did you work
on the X-15?
Ryan: No,
I didn't. I was interested in what was going on. Naturally, we all
were, but I didn't work on it. I was full time on the lifting body.
Johnson: Did
you work on that the whole time you were there?
Ryan: After
the sonic booms, I worked on it all through all of them up to what
we called the SV-5 that became the X-24. It didn't fly until after
I left. The M2-F3 didn't fly until after I left. The M2-F2 cracked
up shortly after I came here, and they called me and let me know about
that, and then from that they built the M2-F3.
Johnson: Was
there a lot of enthusiasm on that project, on the M2-F1, when you
were working on that?
Ryan: Oh,
a tremendous amount. I mean, it was fun. It was great. Oh, yes, there
was a tremendous amount of—and it was sufficiently informal
that even though I wasn't part of the flight test team, I was on the
analysis side. I could go out on the lake when they were doing the
tests, and in fact, I even took pictures, which you probably couldn't
now, but you could then.
A film that I took was actually the only one available for a few days
and they wanted to be showing other people what they had done with
the first few flights, and so I was delighted that they were able
to use my film until they very quickly got a NASA photographer out
there and took some professional ones. But I was pleased that that
got to be used for a while. Well, I've still got it.
Johnson: Was
there a vision with this project of what they eventually wanted it
to accomplish?
Ryan: Oh,
definitely. Yes, definitely. It was to come back from space. And some
of the designs now are lifting body shapes. In fact, one of my last
projects with the Navy, believe it or not, was working on the X-30,
which was to be a horizontal takeoff, single stage to orbit and horizontal
landing aircraft, and it had a lifting body shape. That was the model
of it you may have seen on the way in. There's both an M2-F2 and the
X-30 on my entry table.
Johnson: I'll
have to take a look at that.
Ryan: So it
was sort of fun to go full circle, except that was too complicated
so it didn't fly.
Johnson: There
was an interesting towing vehicle on the M2-F1.
Ryan: The
Pontiac, yes.
Johnson: Can
you tell us anything about that?
Ryan: A Pontiac
Catalina convertible with a rollover bar. You would want a convertible
so you could see what was going on with the lifting body, and you
want the rollover bar in case you have to turn suddenly. A fellow
named [Walter W.] Whiteside, Whitey Whiteside, who you've probably
heard of—I think he passed away not too long ago, maybe a year
ago or something—arranged to get this car. I guess he was into
racing.
But there's the story that went around that you had to get an okay
for this through Congress to buy a car and how do you tell them that
you want a Pontiac Catalina convertible. So they called it a lifting
body power plant, and they got it. I had a note from Betty Love with
something that I'm going to have to ask her about when she's back
in town that I find very distressing. It was apparently on eBay [Internet-based
auction], for sale on eBay, and I don't know how it ever got to eBay
in the first place—this is what I want to ask Betty—without
wheels and without the engine.
But I would have thought NASA would have kept that and preserved it
as a piece of history. But apparently they didn't have any pictures
of it either. I took some pictures and apparently some other people
did, too, that they've since obtained. But they didn't take any pictures
because I guess there was some sensitivity about the lifting body
power plant. And so when they [reconditioned] the M2-F1, they asked
me if they could have that picture that I took, and so they used it
there and I guess it's in their gallery.
But it's a shame that that wasn't kept and preserved by NASA. I'm
going to have to ask Betty how it got on eBay. I don't know if she
knows. Maybe they wanted to hide it and got rid of it quickly and
sold it for surplus. [Laughter]
Johnson: Milt
Thompson was the pilot?
Ryan: Yes.
Great guy.
Johnson: Did
he have anything to do as far as input on the design?
Ryan: Oh,
definitely, definitely. All the pilots at NASA really know their airplanes,
and they're better engineers than the engineers, I think. Well, they
should be because they're going to be the one flying it. And actually,
that got me in trouble up here one time because I went to see one
of our Navy pilots and assumed he was as good as a NASA pilot, and
started asking him questions, and I guess I embarrassed him. But no,
Milt Thompson was an especially good pilot in flying new and different
things. Especially good that way.
Johnson: So
you worked on those projects, and then you went to work for the Naval
Weapons Center at China Lake?
Ryan: Yes.
Johnson: Can
you give us some information about that job and what you did there?
Ryan: Well,
I wanted to get back to more analytical work. I had trained in viscous
fluid flow and boundary-layer transition, and I wanted to get back
into doing more of that, so I transferred up here into the aerothermodynamics
branch, which allowed me to do heat transfer work, which comes from
heating of the flowfield around shapes. We worked on projects about
half-time and on exploratory development projects the other half,
so we'd be learning all the latest techniques and developing them,
and then we could apply them to projects.
So it was a good combination of the practical and the semi-practical,
I guess you'd call it. So that was lots of fun, too. Worked on all
the various weapons, hoping that because we had good weapons, we wouldn't
have to use them. And I guess we did stay out of World War III, even
though we've been involved in other wars, at least not World War III.
Johnson: You
were involved at NASA and then with the Navy during a rather turbulent
time in our country, as far as the Vietnam War and the protests. Some
of the people we've interviewed from Johnson Space Center during that
time have said that they were so focused on what they were doing,
the rest of the world really didn't enter into what they were doing,
and they weren't aware. Do you feel like you had the same focus?
Ryan: Especially
here, especially here. I came here in 1967, and a lot of our practical
effort then was involved in supporting the people in Vietnam, and
we'd get into strange things that weren't exactly our field, but you
felt like you were maybe doing some good, like how do you help the
guy that gets wet boots and has to slog through the swamps. So we'd
get into some practical things.
But no, we were very much supporting the war effort here, probably
even more than they were. I frankly didn't understand what was going
on, and I wasn't that conscious of it because we were so involved
here in trying to get the thing over with, so people wouldn't have
to continue dying. Over with, hopefully winning.
That was a very sad experience for the people who fought it, compared
with World War II, where it was a 100 percent effort, and it just
seems a shame that people didn't support the service people, no matter
how they felt about the war. But they were very much supported here,
and so that was a good feeling that we could help them out.
Johnson: During
your time at Dryden, there were changes, I'm sure, that took place.
Were there any that you were aware of, as far as the facilities or
the way it was funded, or any of those issues that you were aware
of?
Ryan: Well,
the funding was different from here, which, in a sense, made it easier
there, because here we had to account for our time. The project paid
for our time, also, and not just what we made, but overhead, and our
time. So funding was different between the two places. I don't know
if that changed down there or not. I wasn't that aware of the funding.
I've never paid as much attention to that, I guess, as I should.
Plus, the lifting body project was, at least, started out in a way
to spend the least that you could. It was a very low-cost project.
They did start to build—they call it the calibration hangar,
that one next door. They started to build that, I guess, about the
time I was there. One difference I noticed, and it may have just been
time, and not place. The engineers wanted to do their own programming
for the computer, and that wasn't allowed at NASA. It was a closed
shop, so to speak. And when I came here, of course, we could do that,
and it's good to be involved in that kind of thing, at least in those
days when computer programs were smaller, because you understand the
intricacies of it, and the ins and outs and what the assumptions are,
and this sort of thing.
NASA would just give them the equations and they'd program it and
that isn't a satisfactory way to do things. They didn't do that here,
and whether it was time or location, I don't know. It's quite possible
that engineers got more involved at NASA, also. In fact, I'm sure
that they did. I'm sure they must have because it's the best way to
do things.
Johnson: Were
there any opportunities at NASA for advancement in your field, or
did you look for that?
Ryan: Well,
I took courses and advanced the usual way, like everybody else does.
I wasn't interested in management at all, and I haven't been here,
either.
Johnson: We've
heard some other people, in some of the research we've done, describe
the atmosphere at NASA during that time period, and the teamwork and
the feeling of cohesiveness.
Ryan: Especially
the lifting body project, I think, although I'm sure it was true on
the X-15 also, but I think the lifting body group especially felt
that. It was really enjoyable to have the whole gamut, from analytical
to wind tunnel and simulation and flight test, and as I think I said
before, to be able to check your computations with the real world.
Johnson: Do
you think the size, as far as the number of people that were working
there being smaller, attributed to some of that teamwork feeling?
Ryan: Perhaps
so. Everybody knew everybody, and perhaps it did. Although, once again,
if it had been a big place, I'm sure we would have the same with the
lifting body project.
Johnson: While
you were there, what do feel like might have been your most challenging
part of your job at NASA?
Ryan: I don't
know. The whole thing, I guess.
Johnson: Anything
in particular, or just every aspect?
Ryan: Well,
flight test was new to me. Being a pilot, although I was not the same
kind of pilot, I think helped a lot, in a place like that in particular,
so it was very good in that there was always something new to learn,
and there was an opportunity to learn, and so that was very satisfying.
Johnson: Was
there ever anything discouraging or frustrating about your job, or
did you ever feel like there was anything that you couldn't go through
the proper channels and correct?
Ryan: Well,
there were sometimes some tough battles, which you'll get most anyplace,
but we eventually got them through. There was one sort of interesting
thing that I sort of got a kick out of it. It probably is just a blip
that nobody ever noticed, but one piece of flight test data came back
in which there was an indication that the pilot had pushed the rudder
in one direction while he said he pushed it in the other direction,
and everybody decided the pilot was wrong, and I couldn't believe
that.
And so I went to see the instrumentation people and they were very
helpful and they looked at all the instruments and so forth and they
found one, the one that tells which way he had pushed the rudder,
that they had borrowed from the Air Force. They took it apart, they
were very helpful. It was great to work with them because they were
so helpful. And it had been hooked up backwards. The pilot was right.
So that was sort of satisfying.
Johnson: Were
there technical reports published during that time that you were involved
with or did you—
Ryan: Yes.
I think Sheryll [Goecke Powers] has them in the book [Women in Flight
Research at NASA Dryden Flight Research Center from 1946 to 1995].
I think there was one, and then there were some very informal ones.
Mostly I was working on the informal ones to get the information out,
and I did leave one report in final form when I left, but there was
no one there to push it, so it didn't get published. I wish I'd kept
a copy of it, but it was more difficult to make copies in those days.
I'd have to look that up to get the—I do have the information
here. I can look it up. We can do that later, maybe.
Johnson: So
you left NASA, and you went to the Navy, and all this time you were
flying on your own. Were you involved in any groups that were flying,
or was this something you just did on your own? Did you belong to
any organizations?
Ryan: I did
belong and still belong to the Soaring Society of America, and I'm
active in that. I belong to other aviation groups that I'm not as
active in, but I just belong. I rented airplanes at the time and flew
my sailplane, and then when I came up here, we lived on base, and
living was so cheap that in three years I'd saved enough to buy an
airplane, which I still have, Piper Cherokee. I brought my glider
with me and I eventually sold it and bought a higher-performance sailplane,
which I still have.
My sailplane is being restored in Florida, and the fellow wants to
restore it to its original condition, so every once in a while, he'll
contact me by e-mail and say, "What color white paint was it?"
He'll send me samples of white paint, and I don't remember. I didn't
have any money when I was building that, so it was probably the cheapest
paint available. So I picked one out and sent it back to him.
Johnson: You
made him happy.
Ryan: But
it's been sort of fun. He's been sending me pictures of it, the progress
that he's made in restoring it. It had, I think, two owners between
us, and one of them left it out at a [gliderport]—I think it
was Crystalaire [Llano, California]—and it was attacked by a
dog, and so it needs restoration. And so he's been doing that and
it's been fun keeping in touch with him.
Johnson: What
about honors and memberships in anything? I think I found that you
were a member of the American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics?
Ryan: It was
originally IAS [Institute of Aeronautical Sciences] and ARS [American
Rocket Society], and then they combined to form the AIAA, which is
what you just said, and I am an associate fellow of that.
Johnson: What
do you do as far as your involvement?
Ryan: I just
go to local meetings now. I used to go to the conferences, and I did
for a time after I retired, too, but I just go to the local meetings
now and get their magazine to keep up on things. [I held offices in
the local China Lake chapter and was chapter chairman in 1973. I also
was a member of the General Aviation Systems Technical Committee in
the mid-1970s.]
Johnson: At
any point in your career were you ever—or before you chose your
career, were you ever discouraged from going into engineering, being
female?
Ryan: By my
mother.
Johnson: Again.
Ryan: I said,
"I want to do aviation research." She was a brilliant person
in every other aspect. She said, "There's no research in aviation."
She didn't mind when I went into math, but engineering, she didn't
think that was the thing I should do. And the airplanes scared her,
so she didn't ever fly with me, for which I was very sorry.
Johnson: So when you were going to school, though, as far as college
is concerned, or choosing that as a career, you don't feel like there
was anyone that told you being female would be an issue?
Ryan: No.
I was always encouraged, I think, actually.
Johnson: Were
there other women in the program?
Ryan: At MIT
while I was there, I think I was the only one in aeronautical engineering.
It was hard to tell, since I was working full time and taking a course
or two at a time. But I had been preceded by two very talented women,
who actually went to work in the group at Douglas that I eventually
went to work for, and probably because they were so talented, it made
the path easier for me.
Johnson: At
NASA, was there any one person that you felt like was very encouraging
or a mentor, or anyone that you feel—
Ryan: Well,
Dale Reed was always a great inspiration, and Hal [J.] Walker. [Thomas
V.] Cooney, the first person I worked for. Very nice branch head.
Cooney. I can't remember his first name. Gee, I should have looked
all these things up before you came.
Johnson: We
can fill those in later.
Ryan: In fact,
no, I thought they were always very encouraging.
Johnson: So
you worked for the Navy until you retired, is that correct?
Ryan: Yes,
I retired and then I worked for a contractor for a year, half-time,
to sort of phase out. That turned out to be a good thing to do because
it's—I mean, I loved my job so much that I wouldn't have wanted
to have cut it off suddenly, but it was time to. I felt like it was
time, so things worked out right, and to work half-time was just perfect.
Also I think it helped the Navy because by that time they knew I was
leaving so they made the transition, you know, retaining the information
they needed to and so forth. I think that made it easier. So I think
it's a good way to do it.
Johnson: What
year was that?
Ryan: I think
I chose April 1, April Fool's Day, 1991, and then I think, I'm not
real sure, I think it was '91, and then I worked for about a year
for DCS Corporation, which is based in, I believe, Alexandria, Virginia,
but they had a small office here and I brought my funding with me
and worked through them, doing essentially the same thing with a slightly
different name.
Johnson: Have
you continued working anywhere else since then?
Ryan: No.
I've been offered positions but I didn't want to. I have chosen to
do different things. I've been writing articles for magazines, which
is sort of fun. I wrote one on the lifting body, in which that picture
of the Pontiac was first published before [NASA] had it.
Johnson: So
that's what you've been doing with your time mainly, is writing articles?
Ryan: Well,
traveling and writing articles, trying to throw things out and flying,
and this sort of thing. You collect too many things, so I keep trying
to throw them out and they pile up faster than I can throw them out.
Johnson: Some
of your awards and citations—would you like to talk about any
of those, that you've received? The Soaring Society of America, you
were on the board of directors in 1960, is that correct?
Ryan: Yes.
Boy, how did you get all that information? I think it was about that.
Paul Bikle was president and I was the treasurer then on the board
of directors. And they elected me to their hall of fame in something
like 1972 and a couple of other minor awards, and then in 1996, I
was very pleased to receive the Warren E. Eaton Award, which is an
annual award, the highest one the Soaring Society gives. And then
I was really very extremely pleased to receive the [Fédération
Aéronautique Internationale Gliding Commission] Pelagia Majewska
Medal. I received it in 1997 for 1996 and I was the first person from
this country to receive it, and so far the only American to have received
it, so I'm very proud of that one.
Johnson: What
was the criteria for receiving that award?
Ryan: Well,
in both cases, I think the criteria are very similar. You either have
done something magnificent in flying that year, which I didn't do,
or you have given long service to the [sport,] science and art of
soaring. I've lasted a long time.
Johnson: You've
been involved with the Women's Soaring Pilots Association [WSPA],
is that correct?
Ryan: Yes,
to some extent. We had a thing called the Smirnoff Derby where Smirnoff
wanted to advertise how light they were, so they figured they'd sponsor
a sailplane cross country, from Los Angeles to Washington, or the
West Coast to the East Coast. I did the scoring for it and went along,
flying my airplane. They had five of them and I went along on two
or three and did the others by phone.
But it kept coming up, how come there are so few women flying sailplanes?
And I was trying to figure it out, because it's a great sport. How
come there are so few doing it? So I started a newsletter to ask why.
I still haven't figured it out, incidentally, but we started calling
that Hangar Soaring, and then about ten years after that, they formed
the WSPA. So while I haven't been directly involved in the WSPA except
as a member, they do still use the newsletter that I started, and
they've much improved upon it. It comes out now, I guess, about four
times a year, and it's still called Hangar Soaring.
Johnson: Is
it?
Ryan: How
did you learn all these things?
Johnson: Oh,
research. You mentioned you went to Langley on travel one time.
Ryan: Several
times. I don't know if I went more than once for NASA, but I went
for the Navy.
Johnson: Did
you do any other traveling for NASA?
Ryan: I went
to [NASA] Ames [Research Center] a lot for the wind-tunnel tests.
In fact, that was a very helpful thing. No one wanted to spend that
much time up there. They all had families and so forth, so I said,
"I'll go." I had a wonderful time, and it got me started
doing more and more with the project, so it was a good thing to do.
Plus it was very interesting to be at Ames.
Johnson: I
was going to ask Rebecca and see if she has any questions that she'd
like to—
Wright: If
you could share with us a few more details. I made a note when you
were talking about your analysis and the comparison, when you were
doing your lifting body projects. You had a team of so many different
types of experts, sitting together. Could you share with us on how
you were able to take your information and watch it be compiled with
others' information to have results that would help your project as
whole? How were you all able to take all this data and make it into
something that truly would benefit that project?
Ryan: Well,
we'd gather the information from the wind tunnel and get the aerodynamic
coefficients from it, and we'd also try to predict what we would expect
those would be, and then put them into a simulation, and, of course,
people would work together on the simulation, and try to set it up
so that the pilots could fly it. Then they would do the flight tests
and get the data from the flight tests.
The people would gather that data and we'd take it and put it into
a form where we could compare with what we had predicted. The pilots
would also tell us if the simulation was like the flight. Neil Armstrong
used to always say that the flying part is always easiest in the simulation.
There was one simulation that we did that was really sort of fun.
Also, have you bumped into the name Larry [Lawrence W.] Taylor [,Jr.]?
Wright: Yes.
Ryan: He was
in simulation work and, at the time, was not a pilot. I think he's
since learned to fly, but we thought it might be useful to set up
a simulation of the lifting body on tow behind an airplane. This isn't
something that had been done before, and especially the characteristics
between the lifting body and the tow plane.
So we decided to do it with something that we knew, so we used the
1-26, my sailplane, to guess what those aerodynamic coefficients would
be, and put them into a simulation. While that was a single-place
glider, there was a two-place also that had similarities, so we made
up this simulation of the 1-26 on tow.
And then Larry Taylor and I went up to Tehachapi and flew. Like I
say, he didn't fly at the time, but I would allow him to handle the
controls, and when he'd get into trouble, I'd take over, and so he
called me a "reset button." And so that's how we checked
out to see if it was realistic, and then we could put the same ideas
into the M2-F1's flight simulation on tow.
And I think he's since learned to fly. He was at Langley. I saw his
son at Langley. I think he had passed away, but I saw his son when
I went there on travel for the Navy. His son is working for a contractor,
not for NASA, but he was at Langley.
Wright: It
sounds as if that, once you became involved in the day-to-day operations,
it was more of a day-to-day discovery. You were constantly learning
more information that you could apply to what you were looking for.
Ryan: Well,
I certainly was. Not only learning more information but learning how
to do things, and so that made life very interesting.
Wright: When
you arrived at the Flight Research Center, changes were beginning
because it was growing there, compared to, of course, where it started
out as, but there was an atmosphere of a small, tight-knit family.
Do you feel like you were treated as an outsider or did you feel like
you were accepted?
Ryan: Oh,
I felt accepted immediately. No, like I say, I think most of those
big changes must have come before I got there, and apparently just
before, from recent discussions with Betty Love, because, to me, it
just seemed like a great place. I went there and enjoyed myself and
hopefully got some useful work done and found the people great to
work with.
Wright: Sounds
like your days were full.
Ryan: Yes.
Wright: And
then you filled the rest of your days with flying. It was almost as
if your hobby became part of your work and your work became part of
your hobby.
Ryan: That's
what was so much fun, really, that the two seemed to be intertwined.
Maybe that's one reason I left. I was feeling guilty about having
too much fun, but then I continued to have fun up here, too.
Johnson: It's
unique to be able to enjoy your work that much.
Ryan: I think
it's very important to enjoy your work. It's a big part of your life
and if you enjoy it, I think you do it better. I feel for people that
dread going to work.
Johnson: What
about the social aspect when you were at NASA? Did you socialize with
the same people you worked with, after hours, or fly with them?
Ryan: Well,
some of them I flew with, but mostly I was involved with the flying
people. I'm not an awfully sociable person. I don't know if I'm insulting
myself or what.
Johnson: Well,
you knew what you enjoyed, and you pursued that.
Wright: You
mentioned, too, that you started flying when you were in high school.
That was close to the end of World War II. There were programs, the
civilian pilot training. Were you able at all to become part of that?
Ryan: No,
and I've just been reading a book. During World War II, there were
women pilots called WASPs, and they've just written a book of the
stories of 694 of them. There were 1,074 or something and they wrote
them all and they sent back and said how they got started and what
they did and what they've been doing since. It's been a fascinating
book.
So many of them started with this CPT, civilian pilot training. As
I understand it, 10 percent of them could be women, but then as the
war came, they wouldn't let women in anymore, because the purpose
of it was to train pilots that would fly during World War II. But
a lot of the women that joined the WASPs did seem to get their initial
training with the CPT, but that was long gone by the time I was old
enough.
My brother took some ground courses in that and gave me a book from
it, which I still have, on aeronautics, but that was as close as I
got to that.
Wright: And
you worked part-time jobs in order to pay for your flying lessons,
or were your flying lessons given to you? Tell us about you managed
to do all that.
Ryan: My flying
lessons were not given to me.
Wright: Nothing
was given to you, was it? [Laughter]
Ryan: I got
this job at Raytheon, testing and inspecting tubes, while the war
was still on, at fifty cents an hour. I worked there part-time while
I was in school and then that summer, which would have been the last
summer of the war, 1945, I worked full time, so I was making—for
forty-eight hours of work—I was making twenty-four dollars.
The cost of flying at that time in a Taylorcraft was $10.50 solo and
$12.50 dual.
So I would take a bus every weekend to Framingham Airport [Framingham,
Massachusetts] and take something like a half an hour flying, whatever
money I had, and I finally soloed in October that year. Of course,
by that time, everybody had been laid off from their wartime jobs,
but I had still saved every cent of it. I used to walk to work and
everything, but I did have to take the bus to the airport. And I soloed
in October in 1945 and the next day they closed the airport and built
a prison. [Laughter]
Johnson: Hopefully
that wasn't related in any way.
Ryan: So I
had to find a different airport to fly from and I flew from several
for a while, and had various adventures until I finally went to Norwood
[Memorial Airport, Norwood, Massachusetts] and they had a specific
course all set up. Also I had certain advantages there. Well, I spoke
about the instructor that had arranged for me to fly, but also they
had a GI Bill, where the people returning from World War II could
fly for free, so they'd always pad their time a little bit and give
it to me. Not much, just a little, so that helped a little, too.
Wright: And
you haven't stopped since.
Johnson: Did
any of your brothers fly? You mentioned your one brother.
Ryan: The
three brothers, all of whom were in the service during World War II,
and the middle one, Fred, who has since passed away, was an Air Force
pilot. He's the one that gave me the book from the CPT, and he went
into the Air Force. He's also the one that was supposed to arrange
to take me out to the airport that day and scare me so I'd get over
the foolishness.
He knew very well that—he had been flying B-24s. He was a bomber
pilot. And he knew very well he couldn't take me up in the T-craft
[Taylorcraft airplane], so I knew he knew what was going on, so he
went out and got me a ride on it. I had off from school because President
Roosevelt had died, so I got my first flight, which was my first lesson,
and it was even better than I thought it was going to be.
Wright: And
which plane was that?
Ryan: It was
the Taylorcraft.
Johnson: So
it was everything you expected and more?
Ryan: It was
more. It was more. But I wouldn't have wanted to have been a professional
pilot. I preferred to have been an engineer and do the flying on the
side, but be associated with aviation.
Wright: You
certainly have made an impact on many planes. Is there some project
that you worked on in the Navy that you can share with us? I know
sometimes some projects still are not to be discussed.
Ryan: For
the projects, I did heat transfer work. Mainly the heating from aerodynamic
heating. We would make computer models of the particular system that
we were trying to analyze and then apply the flight conditions to
it to see if it would get too hot for the electronics to work or something
like that, or too hot for the structure. So it was just all kinds
of Navy weapons—Condor [missile], Walleye [precision-surface,
antisurface guided glide bomb], Sidewinder [missile]—just about
all of them at one time or another. Tomahawk [cruise missile]—just
about all of them I worked on.
And then, as I said, we had exploratory development programs about
half time. Oh, there would be interference heating between the wing
and the body and how you analyze that, or there would be the effect
of boundary layer transition and where it occurs, and that was one
of the—what I was working on with the X-30, NASP, National Aerospace
Plane, was what the interference heating was between the body and
the sort of a wing control, which I can show you on the model.
But we needed to know where boundary layer transition happens, where
the flow goes from being laminar or smooth to being turbulent, and
right at that point, it can be very hot and so you need to know where
that is. They started trying to figure that out in something like
1911, and they haven't figured it out yet.
So that was probably one of the things in my part of the X-30 study,
which was the exterior of the airplane, that would have delayed it
from flying. The main problem, I think, though, would probably be
the power, the engines, but from a practical viewpoint, I think it
was because they were designing by committee, which you can sort of
see by someone in the Navy working on this project.
They had something like seven main contractors, and they wouldn't
down-select. They decided not to down-select. NASA and the Air Force
and some of the Navy—I sort of talked myself into working on
it because I knew it would be interesting, so I persuaded them that
we ought to work on it, but you don't design airplanes by committee,
and so I think that might have been the biggest problem.
But it was a good thing to do because the people who had worked on
hypersonic flow with the X-15, for example, the NASA people, were
getting where they would be retiring and moving on, and the younger
people hadn't worked on hypersonic flow, so it got those two groups
together—the people with the background knowledge and experience,
and the newer people coming in. So I think it was a good program to
do just from that viewpoint.
But I was glad it turned out to be a lifting body shape, even though
they didn't fly it. Someday they'll do that with some of the newer
ones they're working on now.
Johnson: How
did you feel the first time you saw the Shuttle fly, or knew that
it was flying, knowing that you had something to do—?
Ryan: Well,
I didn't. They didn't take a lifting body shape. They took one with
the wings.
Johnson: Some
of the research, though. Some of the research came from—
Ryan: I'm
sure a lot of the techniques and so forth did, yes, and I was extremely
pleased to see it, and I did have the opportunity to see it land a
couple of times, and I saw one of the night landings, which was very
interesting, too. It was fun to go down there. I'd occasionally go
down and watch from outside of Edwards, too, so it was very satisfying
to see it, and to know some of the people involved was very pleasing
also, to have contact with the people that have made history.
Johnson: Speaking
of some of those people that have made history while you were there,
there were other test pilots. Milt Thompson, you've talked about.
Were there any others—or how was the atmosphere? Being a pilot
yourself, did you have more in common with them?
Ryan: I felt
that being a pilot helped in my contacts with them. Maybe it was my
imagination, but I felt that that made a difference, although I was,
of course, a very different type of pilot. But I very much admired
and respected them all very much. I thought they were just outstanding.
[William H.] Bill Dana just came up and spoke to our AIAA group a
couple of weeks ago and it was very nice to see him again. And Bruce
Peterson and [Joseph A.] Joe Walker, of course. It was a very sad
day when Joe Walker had his accident.
Wright: How
did the changing of technology affect your job and what you were trying
to achieve?
Ryan: I was
so proud down at NASA because I had a 20-inch slide rule I could do
my calculations on. And of course, then they got the computer which
we couldn't be directly involved with, but I was more directly involved
here, and worked up through working on a Cray [computer] here, and
working the ARPANET [Advanced Research Projects Agency Network] in
1980, which eventually became the Internet.
There have been some tremendous changes. I think these changes have
increased productivity tremendously. I mean, calculations that would
have taken six months, if we could do them, you could maybe do in
a couple of minutes. We could go into the analysis of a vehicle after
several years here, and I'm sure they did it down there now, too,
of course, that we couldn't even conceive of when I was first starting.
Yes, there have been some big changes. It's been fun to see them.
The first computer I saw at MIT took up a whole building, and the
output was a CRT [cathode ray tube], where you took a Polaroid picture
of it, and it was a whole building, and now you can hold something
in the palm of your hand that can do even more. So it's sort of fun.
There's a computer museum in Boston that's fun to go to, although
you go to it and you see it's already behind, because things are happening
so fast. I have a little antique computer here, the first one I owned.
I keep it in here with the other antiques. [Laughter] I don't know
how anybody ever used it. You have to boot it up each time you use
it. It's terrible. It's probably fifteen years old, so it's not all
that old, in a sense.
Johnson: It
doesn't take much to make a computer antique anymore, the way technology
changes.
Ryan: Yes,
what is it? Moore's Law or somebody's law says something about capability
doubles every so many months [18 to 24 months], something like that,
and price goes down. Which is why productivity has gone up and one
reason we've done so well in the last few years in our country.
Wright: Have
you been back to visit MIT?
Ryan: Yes.
I was back a couple years ago for AMITA, the Association of MIT Alumnae,
and I was back there. I was back to see Emmanuel [College] for something
they had, and then there was something going on at the same time at
MIT, so I went to see them both. And I was back last year to the fiftieth
reunion at Emmanuel, but I didn't go to MIT at the time. I guess it
would have been the forty-fifth there.
Wright: Aviation
research at MIT, when you were first just working on some of your
jobs and research there, it certainly has gone into different areas
that I'm sure they never even dreamed of, just like you.
Ryan: Yes.
Of course, more computerization and so forth. Our contacts there were
fabulous, the people that would come through there that we'd have
contacts with, and I remember, we'd have seminars and so forth and
I remember hearing the tape of [Charles E.] Chuck Yeager's flight
when he broke the speed of sound, and so that was another thing that
made me want to wind up at Edwards for a while.
Johnson: So
nowadays, would you encourage other women to go into your field, still?
Ryan: Oh,
definitely. I probably had the best of it, I think. The most exciting
time, from what I was interested in. But there are tremendously exciting
things coming up, with the exploration of space. Oh, I think it's
still a fabulous field, and there's a lot of interesting low-speed
stuff going on, too, that you see with the gliders.
There's been a tremendous change in the design of the—aerodynamic
design of the gliders, where they went into composite structures,
and they really took a step increase in capabilities, aerodynamic
performance in the gliders, when they did go to that new type of structure.
Now they're putting computers into the gliders, which will compute
for them where they are, what speed they would need to fly to get
to where they want to go, and they're doing tremendous things from
the computerization, instrumentation in the sailplanes now, too. So
there's a lot to be done low speed and a lot to be done exploring
the universe.
Johnson: Have
you ever been involved in any competitions, as far as gliding or soaring?
Ryan: To some
extent, but that hasn't been my interest. I used to do the scoring
for the contests. I had a lot of fun doing that.
Johnson: How
often do you get to fly now?
Ryan: I try
to fly my airplane a couple of times a week. The sailplane, I haven't
been flying quite as much as I had been, but I'm still trying to fly
sailplanes, too.
Johnson: Have
you ever been in involved in teaching other people how to fly?
Ryan: I had
a glider instructor rating for a while. Every once in a while I bump
into someone who said they flew with me, and got started. Well, it's
so nice to know they got started and continued on with flying sailplanes.
Wright: I
found that was an interesting description that you gave a while ago
about the art, science, and sport of flying.
Ryan: Of soaring.
Wright: Of
soaring. Of those three elements together.
Ryan: Well,
I think that's why so many engineers are attracted to soaring, and
maybe this is why there don't seem to be so many women in soaring
because there aren't that many women engineers, although I guess there
are a lot more now. But yes, you really need to understand all about
your sailplane, you need to know the structure of it so that you're
confident of its strength. You definitely need to know the aerodynamics
of it, so you know what it can do in a performance, because you're
trying to utilize the power from the air.
And you need to know and understand the weather, somewhat on a large
scale, but especially on a small scale, and you need to combine all
those things and decide what's the best to do. A champion sailplane
pilot once said that if you're not making a decision every minute,
you're not working hard enough, and so I think this is why engineers
are attracted to soaring because of the thought process and all the
things that are involved.
Wright: And
when you're flying your planes, what's going through your mind? Is
it a time for you to be free, or is it a time for, as you mentioned,
making decisions every moment? Tell us about those times when you're
getting to take your plane up.
Ryan: I'm
a little different from most glider pilots, in that I like to go up
and see the power that you get from the air and enjoy the scenery
and the beauty of the countryside. So I don't work as hard at the
decision-making process as the true competition pilot would, which
is probably why I'm not that much attracted to competition. But a
lot of people do use it as a means of relaxation. They very often
have stressful jobs and so they take up soaring as a way to find another
way to be stressed, I guess, in a more pleasurable manner.
Wright: Are
you flying close by your home, or do you go different places each
time?
Ryan: With
the soaring, I do some flying here [Inyokern] and California City
and Tehachapi and occasionally it's nice to go further afield and
fly some different sailplanes or something like that. But we're very
fortunate in that we have good flying and soaring weather, which is
one reason I live here.
Wright: Now,
your mom never flew with you before she passed away. Did she ever
fully understand what brought you to have that desire to be in the
space industry?
Ryan: One
day, not too long before she died, she said she wanted to make something
for the sailplane, so she knew that it needed a rudder chock, which
I had, but she took cloth and covered it for that. And also, there
was a fellow at NASA that used to make jewelry out of the catalyst
for the X-15. I wish I could remember his name, too, because he was
a great guy. He was going to make me a pin in the form of a sailplane
with a sort of a circle around it, like it was spiraling, and she
said, "I want to give you that." So she finally realized
that it was a losing battle.
Johnson: After
so many years, she couldn't convince you otherwise.
Ryan: She
finally accepted it.
Wright: Well,
that's good.
Ryan: Yes,
it is.
Wright: Well,
that was pretty much all I have for now. Is there anything that you
would like to add before we close? Some areas that we might not have
talked about, or some other aspects of your life and your career that
we could think about?
Ryan: I have
been writing these articles, which has been sort of fun, that they've
been accepted.
Johnson: What
magazine?
Ryan: Well,
four, but mainly one called Woman Pilot magazine. It's on the Internet,
actually—womanpilot.com. And they've been very receptive and
I wrote about the lifting body and I wrote about Sierra [Mountains]
wave conditions. The wind crossing the mountains gives a particular
kind of meteorological condition, which glider pilots utilize but
power pilots need to be aware of.
And I've written about various well-known women pilots. Hanna Reitsch,
I had the privilege of meeting her. Oh, that's something I should
tell you. She was a famous German pilot and she was the first person
to fly a helicopter indoors, which she did in Berlin [Germany] during
World War II, as a demonstration. She is one of I think only two women
who received the Iron Cross [medal]. She came to this country to attend
some functions here, and I guess it was 1961 or [196]2.
Paul Bikle, being the director of NASA and a glider pilot, arranged
for her to stay with me while she was in this area so that she could
do some flying here. One day when we were walking out the door to
meet him and go have dinner or something like that, she started a
conversation, saying, "People said I was [Adolph] Hitler's girlfriend,
but I really wasn't." My mouth fell open and all I could do was
sit there and listen, or stand there and listen to the most fascinating
story I've ever heard in my life, which I wrote up for this magazine,
was how she flew into Berlin during the last days with—[Colonel-General
Robert Ritter] von Greim was the person who took over the Air Force
from [Reich Marshal Hermann] Goering—and they flew into Berlin
while it was under attack in Fieseler Storch [airplane] I believe
it was, and landed on one of the streets of Berlin and went into the
bunker. And she was there the last few days of the bunker and finally,
Hitler talked her into leaving to go tell [Heinrich] Himler off or
something like that.
I could have the airplane wrong. They flew one in and a different
one out, so don't go by my details, but you don't often meet somebody
like that. And so that was a remarkable experience, but Paul Bikle
was showing her around the hangar at Edwards, and I was standing off
to the side, and there was an Air Force officer standing beside me,
and I thought he might be interested in knowing who this person is.
She was a very small person, and I said, "You know, she flew
the V-1," [surface-to-surface pilotless flying bomb] and he looked
at me with the strangest look and then he walked away. But she did.
She was very small, and they put a cockpit on the V-1 because they
were having some problems with it, and she flew on it. So that was
an interesting experience to meet her.
Wright: Well,
we're going to stop for just a second so I can change the tape out,
okay? Then we'll pick right back up again.
Ryan: These
were just data that we gathered. [Referring to Technical Reports]
These are the people that were on the project. What's the date on
this one? This was the M2-F2.
Johnson: April
14, 1965.
Ryan: Yes,
we started getting more formal later on. We weren't all that formal
in the beginning. These are other people that worked on it. Oh, after
I left NASA, there was an invited paper of the International Congress
of Subsonic Aeronautics, which John McTigue gave and I helped him
write. The Navy actually sent me back to go to the conference, which
I thought was nice, considering it was a NASA project. This may be
the one that didn't get published. [Summary of Aerodynamics of the
Manned M2-F2 Lifting Entry Vehicle] April [19]60. Well, I don't know,
that's the year before, so maybe it did. These are just rough drafts
of them, I guess.
Wright: During
the time you were in NASA, a lot of the NASA budget was going toward
the human space flight goals. Did you feel any effect of what was
going on in the other parts of the [NASA] Centers, of trying to reach
that goal that President [John F.] Kennedy had set forth?
Ryan: No.
Of going to the moon, you mean?
Wright: To
the moon.
Ryan: No,
I didn't. That would have been right during that time period, wouldn't
it? But no, I didn't. But I'm glad they went. I think they should
keep going.
Johnson: As
far as producing these types of reports during the time you were there,
it was pretty labor-intensive, wasn't it, to get it written and get
it typed and get it edited?
Ryan: Well,
it's certainly easier to write things now, and rewrite them. Things
take a lot of rewriting, and it wasn't that easy back then.
Johnson: Were
there times you had to modify them and try to keep from making the
changes domino? You know, if you modified something at the beginning
and knowing that it would affect—
Ryan: There
were always several iterations, as I remember, on things.
Wright: Quite
a group.
Ryan: Yes,
they were a good group.
Wright: At
least now when you're writing, it's a little more free. You sit and
then you're able to control the whole aspect of it. You're a one-team
member on your writing projects now.
Johnson: Is
there anything else, any other maybe anecdotes or stories?
Ryan: Well,
see, this is why I was taking notes for that little gal from MIT because
you're supposed to give me those ideas. [Laughter]
Johnson: Any
anecdotes about any of the other pilots that you met? You told us
the one.
Ryan: Oh,
well, there were always good stories about them.
Johnson: Any
that you want on record?
Ryan: They
might not. I remember when they first—the early days there,
they used to give bananas to the pilots. You know, some of the first
space passengers were monkeys, so they'd give bananas to the pilots.
And then there was the time when the U-2 [spy plane] flew, and it
got caught over in Russia, and for a little while—this was very
shortly after I got there, too—for a little while there was—it
was supposedly a NASA research project and the press had been coming
up anyway to talk to Joe Walker about the X-15, and we were told not
to go look out the windows, which, of course, we did, because they
had pulled a U-2 down from North Base, with the paint saying "NASA"
still dripping, and the press were interviewing Joe about the X-15,
with this in the background.
Of course, they started asking him about the U-2 and so here he had
to tell him all about his flying in the U-2 while he was trying to
get a look at it himself, and all of us were in the windows trying
to see what a U-2 looked like also, so that was sort of fun for a
couple of days.
Then Milt Thompson had a flap stick or brake or something and he was
going around like this in an F-104 [Starfighter], so he punched out,
and the F-104 made a big hole in the ground, so someone took a picture
of it and put a sign on it and said, "Cleared for a straight-in."
And then on the lifting body program, there was a pilot named [Jerauld]
Gentry from the Air Force who flew the M2-F1 and got a little out
of control on the tow and released and landed and hurt the landing
gear a bit, but things were okay. Well, then when he went to fly the
heavyweight one, somebody put a sign on it saying, "This side
up." So they have a good sense of humor, the pilots.
Johnson: They
took it well?
Ryan: Well,
they have to.
Wright: Were
flight tests going on all the time or were those times few and far
between during your research?
Ryan: I don't
remember particularly. It seemed like you’d have to do some
planning for the next one all the time. The car tows with the Pontiac,
we seemed to get a lot of those off for a while. They had a center
fin on the M2-F1, and the pilot, when he was first flying it, it was
a new aircraft, so it was a little unstable. It appeared unstable,
but it was just because he didn't know the aircraft. He had to learn
to fly the aircraft. But they thought it might have been the center
fin, which isn't what you'd expect, so they took it off, but later
on, on other designs, they put it back on. It was just simply that
he was learning to fly it because it was a very new and different
thing than anybody had ever flown before.
Wright: When
I’m visualizing you out on the Center with all these men, working,
are you dressed in a skirt and blouse and heels, or were you able
to wear comfortable clothes to go out to the flight test?
Ryan: I honestly
don't remember, so it must have been comparatively comfortable. I
don't think I ever wore high heels very much anyway, but I don't remember
one way or the other, frankly.
Wright: So
much of that social climate was changing during the sixties, where
things were becoming a little more comfortable, and not so formal
between the genders.
Ryan: I must
admit, I just never noticed it. I was working as an engineer, or when
I was on weekends I was playing as a pilot.
Wright: Just
a human being, enjoying the day. That works out.
Johnson: You
were there during a time when some test pilots came through that eventually
became pretty famous.
Ryan: Oh,
Neil Armstrong.
Johnson: Did
you have the opportunity to meet him, or any of the others?
Ryan: We took
a heat transfer course together from USC [University of Southern California]
that was offered there and he put it to practical use, of course.
I'd be stuck on some problems or something and he'd tell me how to
do them. He was a smart guy, was a good choice for the job he had.
Wright: That
must have been a little sense of pride, knowing that your former classmate—
Ryan: I had
spoken of my mom having been born in 1884, and then she winds up in
Lancaster with me and the people that she might meet or see became
people that would go out into space, and what a transition in her
lifetime. Fred [Wallace] Haise [Jr.] was there, the one that flew
in Apollo 13. He was involved in a fascinating project, doing flutter
on the tail of a Piper aircraft. I don't know if you know much about
flutter, but it's not a nice thing, and so I thought that was courageous,
I guess. Joe [Henry] Engle was there flying the X-15 and he of course
has gone on to lots of things with the astronauts.
Wright: He's
still very involved with [Thomas P.] Tom Stafford, working for NASA.
Ryan: One
of our people up here—in fact, I just wrote her up a couple
of issues ago—a gal named B.J. Holden, who was both a power
pilot and a glider pilot and a Ph.D. in EE [Electrical Engineering],
applied for astronaut training, and was one of the final 200, but
didn't make the last cut. But during that process, I got a phone call
from John [W.] Young, as her reference, so that was sort of fun.
Wright: Yes,
he's still very active. Just never know who's going to call you on
the phone, do you?
Ryan: Well,
I was sorry, I guess I could have done better on the recommendation,
but B.J. would have been the type of person that wouldn't have liked
the publicity that went along with being one of the first women mission
specialists, so she probably had mixed feelings about the whole thing.
Johnson: Why
did you leave NASA and go to the Navy?
Ryan: Well,
I really felt like I should get more into the work that I had trained
for. I had been interested in boundary-layer transition and viscous
flow and this kind of thing, and that's what my thesis had been about.
My work at Douglas had been more theoretical aerodynamics and my work
at MIT, which was both aeroelasticity and flutter, but also the fluid
flow, I just wanted to get back into that more. I considered going
back to school. I got accepted at Stanford [University, Stanford,
California] and got a job at Moffett Field, but I decided it was better
to come here and I think it was a wise choice.
Johnson: No regrets.
Ryan: No.
I think I had the best time working here, too. It hasn't been so pleasant
since the nineties. They had more contract monitoring and concern
with funding and so forth and those were the things I didn't want
to be involved in, so it turned out I had good timing every place
I went.
Wright: Yes,
you did. Well, we thank you for your time this morning and have learned
so much.
Ryan: Well,
I hope it's been what you wanted.
Johnson: Oh,
yes. It definitely has.
Wright: Absolutely.
And once we send you the materials, you'll have a chance to think
if there's some other things that you want to add, and we can do that.
Ryan: Well,
if you think of anything else, too, that you should have asked me,
I don't think of those things until somebody brings them up, I guess.
And I've forgotten an awful lot, too. Should have been writing things
down.
Wright: It
sounds like you were very busy.
Johnson: It
sounds like you had your hands full, both at work and not at work.
Well, thank you again.
[End of interview]