Roger Wayne Wallace, Ph.D.
Father, Teacher, Friend - Page 2
1919 -2011
After high school Roger drove out to California to attend the California Institute of Technology (Cal Tech). He worked as a waiter in the student dining halls which gave him great insight into how to use underliners, utensils, and how to serve food, information he later inflicted on his children, grand children, and anyone who would listen. As a freshman he met Isabelle Ruth Chadwick who lived in Pasadena. They dated for eight years before marrying. Isabelle was a better athlete than Roger, routinely beating him at tennis. The one time he won, he jumped over the net, tripped, and broke his left wrist. He built a snipe sailboat at his parents’ house (which was unfortunately quickly eaten by toredos - marine worms).
Roger graduated from CalTech with a B.S. in physics and searched for a job. He took a job at Lockheed working on aircraft design. His first assignment was to work in each of the construction divisions to gain insight into what was involved in construction prior to doing any design. Drawings were done full scale. His love of the flush mounted rivet was first born here. He worked on the Constellation and the P-38. He contributed several major design decisions to the P-38 including preventing the inclusion of windows that opened in a pressurized cockpit and deciding that it would be the first fighter plane without a slot for the pilot’s ceremonial sword. The Navy commissioned him as an ensign and he was assigned to stay at Lockheed until needed for WW2.
Lockheed P-38 Lightning
Roger worked on a number of rockets including the Hedgehog rocket system and a rocket-propelled torpedo. Torpedoes at the time had a tendency to break apart when dropped from aircraft. They would explode, damaging the aircraft. They also tended to not explode when they hit targets. He wrapped the torpedo in stainless steel mesh to strengthen it. They tested the strength by dropping it from an airplane onto a concrete parking lot. The stainless steel mesh and rocket engine seemed to solve the fragility problems. This early experience led to a life-long love for stainless steel. At one point they had a problem with rocket engines that just exploded when ignited. After much study, Roger realized that the materials for the rocket fuel had been purified to remove dirt. The light from the flame front was so intense it ignited the rest of the fuel, optically causing the rocket motor to explode. They added some India ink to make the fuel more opaque, thus curing the problem. Roger did blow up one rocket motor test facility in the process of figuring this problem out. He continued to work at Lockheed before and during World War II.
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