24. RAY FRIGHT

Ray had been employed in publications and came to Flight Test to do some research, and we got to know him. He was extremely knowledgeable and was helpful solving some  hydraulic problems we encountered. 

When I was transferred from Customer Service to Flight Test Engineering to form the Ground Operations Group I had Ray transferred to that group.  He was with me for about 18 years, I later formed the Flight Acceptance Group and he was there when I retired in 1983.

Among other improvements in Production Flight Test, was the work he did with Jim Chadwick of Chadwick Helmouth Co.  Even though we never had an authorized program to develop the Strobex blade tracking system, we did it on production aircraft.  Later Ray was the primary person in the development of the Vibrex dynamic balancing system.

He went to Vietnam on two occasions to assist the Army with  vibration problems in some early model aircraft and he also went to England to help British Airways. We could always depend on Ray to solve technical problems.

When I retired in October 1983, Ray took over leadership of the Flight Acceptance Group. The work load was very low at that time with only a few CH-47D aircraft per month.  A new young engineer, Joe Schluck transferred into the group for on-the-job training.

A few months later Joe Schluck had been doing very well and had been doing flights alone. For unknown reasons, Ray got into the aircraft  Joe Schluck was aboard.  While testing one engine, the combining  transmission failed, normally an auto-rotation would have gotten them down safely but a large quantity of oil spewed into the aft  pylon and caught fire.

The fire burned through some controls, and the aircraft went out of control.  The pilot Donald Vetter and Ray Fright perished, the co-pilot Lynn Freisner and engineer Joe Schluck parachuted and had minor injuries. Freisner is the chief pilot but was serving as co-pilot on this flight.