My first major contribution was with Kearfott a division of General Instrument. I worked in the prototype lab building new designs of gyro systems. I also built the prototype for the first depth recorder for small boats.

Then I moved on to Reaction Motors a division of Thiokol Chemical. There I worked with a number of rocket engines. The most memorable to me was the X-15 engine that I worked on as an instrumentation technician during testing.



XLR-99 running at R-2
This was a very secret project and when I took this picture, I could have been arrested for bringing a camera to work.
We were very excited when we got up to 13 "shock diamonds".
Shock Diamonds are the bright spots in the exhaust caused by the sound waves reacting with the exhaust gasses.
You can easily see the first four in the above picture. The rest are hard to see as they blend with the sky.

XLR-99 running at the smaller E area test stand