[Dixielandjazz] Charles Kaman, inventor of Ovation guitar dies

[Norman Vickers]

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To: DJML  and Musicians  & Jazzfans lists

From:  Norman Vickers, Jazz Society of Pensacola

 

Here is article about the death of helicopter expert and inventor of the
Ovation guitar with the rounded fiberglass back, Charlie Kaman. From
NYTimes-

 

The initial Ovation had a large rounded back, which made it difficult to
hold.  Later the rounded fiberglass backs were not so deep, making it easier
to hold.

It was an acoustic electric.  I love my original model with the BIG rounded
back! ( Even though it is somewhat uncomfortable to hold)

Disclaimer:  I don't consider  myself an accomplished guitarist but I love
trying!

 




  _____  

February 2, 2011  New York Times


Charles H. Kaman, Helicopter Innovator, Dies at 91


By MOTOKO RICH
<http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/people/r/motoko_rich/in
dex.html?inline=nyt-per> 


Charles H. Kaman, an innovator in the development and manufacture of
helicopter technology and, following a wholly different passion, the
inventor of one of the first electrically amplified acoustic guitars, died
on Monday in Bloomfield, Conn. He was 91. 

Mr. Kaman
<http://topics.nytimes.com/top/news/business/companies/kaman-corporation/ind
ex.html?inline=nyt-org> , who had suffered several strokes over the last
decade, died of complications of pneumonia, his daughter, Cathleen Kaman,
said. He lived in Bloomfield. 

Mr. Kaman (pronounced ka-MAN) was a 26-year-old aeronautical engineer when
he founded the Kaman Aircraft Company in 1945 in the garage of his mother's
home in West Hartford, Conn. By the time he retired as chairman in 2001, he
had built the Kaman Corporation into a billion-dollar concern that
distributes motors, pumps, bearings and other products as well as making
helicopters and their parts. 

Within the aerospace industry, Mr. Kaman is best known for inventing dual
intermeshing helicopter rotors, which move in opposite directions, and for
introducing the gas turbine jet engine to helicopters. The company's HH-43
Huskie <http://www.nationalmuseum.af.mil/factsheets/factsheet.asp?id=306>
was a workhorse in rescue missions in the Vietnam War. 

Mr. Kaman, a guitar enthusiast, also invented the Ovation guitar
<http://www.ovationguitars.com/whyovation/the_history> , effectively
reversing the vibration-reducing technology of helicopters to create a
generously vibrating instrument that incorporated aerospace materials into
its rounded back. In the mid-1960s he created Ovation Instruments, a
division of his company, to manufacture it. 

The Ovation allows musicians to amplify their sound without generating the
feedback that often comes from using microphones. It was popularized in the
late 1960s by the pop and country star Glen Campbell
<http://www.glencampbellshow.com/ovation.html> , who played it on his
television show, "The Glen Campbell Good Time Hour," and who appeared in
advertisements for the company
<http://www.glencampbellshow.com/images/6_9.jpg> . A long roster of rock and
folk music guitarists began using it as well. 

With his second wife, Roberta Hallock Kaman, Mr. Kaman founded the Fidelco
Guide Dog Foundation <http://www.fidelco.org/index.html> , which trains
German shepherds as guide dogs for the blind and the police. Since 1981,
Fidelco has placed 1,300 guide dogs in 35 states and four Canadian
provinces, said Eliot D. Russman, the foundation's executive director. 

"It came down to the helicopters, guitars and dogs," Mr. Kaman's eldest son,
C. William Kaman II, said in a telephone interview. 

In addition to his daughter, Cathleen, an artist who is known professionally
as Beanie Kaman <http://www.beaniekaman.com/artiststatement.html> , and his
son William, Mr. Kaman is survived by another son, Steven; four
grandchildren; and two great-grandchildren. 

Born on June 15, 1919, in Washington, Charles Huron Kaman was the only child
of Charles William Kaman and Mabel Davis Kaman. As a teenager, he loved
building model airplanes from balsa wood and tissue paper and flying them in
indoor competitions. He had once hoped to be a professional pilot but
abandoned that ambition because he was deaf in his right ear. 

He received his bachelor's degree in aeronautical engineering from the
Catholic University of America in 1940. After graduating, he went to work at
Hamilton Standard Propeller Corporation, a unit of United Aircraft. He soon
met Igor Sikorsky <http://www.sikorskyarchives.com/Igor_Sikorsky.php> ,
another pioneer in helicopter design, who ran United's helicopter division
and who inspired Mr. Kaman to begin developing his own parts. 

One of his first inventions was the "servo-flap," which could be added to
the edges of a rotor blade to help stabilize a helicopter. But one of his
greatest contributions was to introduce jet engines to helicopters. 

"It gave them more power," said Walter J. Boyne
<http://www.wingsoverkansas.com/profiles/article.asp?id=283> , chairman of
the National Aeronautic Association <http://www.naa.aero/>  and the author
of numerous books on aviation. "Helicopters really moved into their own." 

Terry Fogarty, who worked closely with Mr. Kaman for nearly a decade
developing the K-MAX "aerial truck," said Mr. Kaman, who developed the first
remote-control helicopter in 1957, envisioned an unmanned cargo helicopter
that would take over the "dull, dirty and dangerous missions." 

The company is developing such a helicopter
<http://www.lockheedmartin.com/products/K-MAX> , based on the K-MAX, and has
a contract to deploy it to the Marine Corps for use in Afghanistan. 

Mr. Kaman married Helen Sylvander in 1945; they divorced in 1971. Later that
year he married Roberta Hallock, who died last year. 

Ms. Kaman recalled her father strumming different versions of the Ovation in
a studio at home, trying to figure out how deep or shallow to make the
rounded back to produce the best sound. 

"That was his big gift to the three of us," she said. "When he would come
home, he would play guitar."