Avionics News - September 2023 - 23

760th Aircraft Control and Warning Squadron at Colville
Air Force Station in a remote and mountainous area of
northeast Washington state.
First Lieutenant Parkinson and a captain, already there,
were stretched while filling Comm/Electronics officer
positions for a major and two captains. The two of them
were responsible for all the complex communications
and radar systems on the base. Within a few months, the
captain had been court-martialed and left Parkinson with
responsibility for all three senior positions. This included
leading about 150 enlisted communication and electronics
technicians who had to keep the base operational for the
warning and intercept of potential Russian nuclear bombers.
This was leadership and management
on a large scale for a junior officer.
By early 1959, Parkinson was
ready to move on. He applied for
USAF sponsorship for a two-year
master's program at MIT, working
at MIT's Instrumentation Laboratory
that had been founded by " Doc "
Draper (considered the father of
inertial navigation). The application
was forwarded by the squadron
commander who signed it and said:
" You are my only maintenance officer,
and my career may suffer, but I think
you have a great future in the Air
Force. "
the chief analyst for inertial navigation systems for the Air
Force. He then was admitted to Stanford and completed the
requirements for a Ph.D. in 20 months, graduating in 1966.
In his next Air Force assignment, he ran the simulation
division and taught space mechanics and control theory
at the USAF Test Pilot School at Edwards Air Force Base
where his students included Robert L. Crippen and all the
other Group 7 NASA astronauts.
" POSITIONING AND
ENGINEERING WERE
BUILT INTO
MY GENES. "
Brad Parkinson
Parkinson did well at MIT - all A's except for two of
the early courses. Although Parkinson was enrolled in the
Aero/Astro department, he had the goal of a strong minor
in electrical engineering. He developed his proposed
course plan with about one-third of the selections in the EE
department. His advisor from AA became angry, because
he thought there were plenty of good AA courses that
Parkinson should be taking instead of electrical engineering.
Parkinson was adamant. The advisor finally signed the
approval letter and then threw it at the young Air Force
officer. The EE courses Parkinson took included all the
available courses on digital electronics, which were in their
infancy. These subjects would later prove invaluable during
Parkinson's Air Force career.
At MIT, he studied inertial navigation at the MITaffiliated
Instrumentation Lab with Draper. The name of
the place was later changed to Draper Lab. Draper led the
development of the Apollo spacecraft guidance computer
as well as building the first operational inertial navigation
systems. In two years, Parkinson took three times the
number of credits required for a master's degree.
After MIT graduation, Parkinson spent three years as
Parkinson became a distinguished graduate of the Air
Force Command and Staff college in 1969 and was assigned
to the Air Force Academy as a professor and deputy head of
the astronautics and computer science department. He had
barely settled in when Rick Willes, an aeronautics professor
and 1957 classmate from the Naval
Academy, burst into the office and
said he had a great opportunity for
him. A new AC-130 gunship project
was incorporating a digital fire control
system into the aircraft, and this
innovation was in serious technical
trouble.
Willes thought Parkinson was just
the person to resolve the problems,
but Parkinson said he couldn't leave
without the dean's approval. Willes
then admitted he had already gone
around Parkinson and obtained the
dean's approval. Parkinson agreed
and was temporarily detached to Wright-Patterson Air Force
Base. In November 1969, the Air Force demonstrated this
AC-130 capability to some Pentagon general officers who
approved it for immediate use with a twist. The development
team would take the plane into combat over the Ho Chi Minh
trail. Parkinson was a lead for the precision-aiming system
now headed for use in Vietnam.
The next thing he knew he was logging night combat
missions in the AC-130 gunship, attacking truck convoys
on the trail. His aircraft was being countered by North
Vietnam anti-aircraft artillery each night during his 26 combat
missions. His crew would expend all of the 40 mm (later
105 mm) ammunition aboard the plane before going back to
the Thailand base, usually about 3 a.m. Parkinson, serving
as the fire control officer, worked to perfect the new digital
fire control system. Ironically, the AC-130 gun model (40
mm Bofors) was identical to the anti-aircraft weapon he had
loaded for drills on the USS Missouri as a young midshipman,
the same ship his uncle had guided into Tokyo harbor.
Between nightly AC-130 missions, he directed software
adjustments that were made just in time for the next mission.
Continued on following page
avionics news * september 2023 23
Avionics News - September 2023

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of Avionics News - September 2023
