Joseph Gordon Vaeth
US Navy officer and engineer (1921–2012)
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Joseph Gordon Vaeth (1921-2012) was an officer in the United States Navy and a civilian aeronautical engineer employed by the Office of Naval Research and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA). Vaeth was a lifelong advocate for the use of lighter-than-air aircraft. He was the author of eight books and numerous articles.
Joseph Gordon Vaeth | |
|---|---|
| Born | February 12, 1921 New York City |
| Died | March 11, 2012 (aged 91)[1] Olympia, Washington |
| Burial place | Rock Creek Cemetery |
| Other names | J. Gordon Vaeth |
| Occupations | Engineer, Author |
Early life
Vaeth was the son of Joseph Anthony Vaeth (d. 1938), a New York University professor of languages, and his wife Sara (Billard) Vaeth, the sister of Coast Guard Commandant Frederick C. Billard.[2] In 1941, he graduated from New York University with a Bachelor's of Arts; in September 1941, he was employed as an instructor at the Admiral Billard Academy, named for his uncle.[3]
Career
During World War II, Vaeth was commissioned as a Lieutenant and commanded the US Navy airship fleet in the South Atlantic. After the war, Vaeth was employed by the Navy Special Devices Center, and was involved in Project Helios, a plan for a manned balloon flight to 100,000 feet.[4] He was a member of the American Rocketry Society, the British Interplanetary Society, the Institute of Aeronautical Sciences and the League of Aeronauts.[4]
Vaeth worked with the naval unit at the White Sands Proving Ground, and in 1951, he authored 200 Miles Up, a history of guided missile development.[4] In 1955, he was quoted in press about US plans to launch an artificial satellite.[5][6] Vaeth served as an aeronautical engineer with the Office of Naval Research. In 1960, he was employed as a manned spaceflight expert by Reflectone Electronics.[7] In the 1970s, Vaeth served as Director of Systems Engineering for National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.[8] In 1977, Vaeth published an article concluding that Amelia Earhart likely died after running out of fuel.[9][10]
Veath was a longtime advocate of airships. Journalist James J. Kilpatrick said that Vaeth:[11]
is known around our office as 'the airship man.' Mr. Vaeth, a former naval officer, [was] system director of engineering for the National Environmental Satellite Service. His other fulltime job, a labor of pure love, [was] to promote the airship revival. In the same way that other men are nuts about fire engines or steam locomotives, Mr. Vaeth [was] nuts about zeppelins.
As early as 1939, Veath was advocating for the use of airships.[12] In 1959, Vaeth authored a book about the Graf Zeppelin airship. In 1963, papers carried an image of Vaeth holding a piece of wreckage from the USS Shenandoah, a dirigible which crashed in 1925.[13] In 1974, Vaeth testified before the United States Senate Committee on Aeronautical and Space Sciences about the possibility of nuclear-engines permitting dirigibles to achieve speeds up to 150 miles per hours.[14]
Personal life
Works
- Vaeth, J. Gordon (1951). 200 miles up : the conquest of the upper air. Ronald Press Co. p. 207.
- Vaeth, J Gordon (1958). Graf Zeppelin: The Adventures of an Aerial Globetrotter. New York: Harper & Brothers., on the Graf Zeppelin
- Vaeth, J. Gordon (1962). To the Ends of the Earth: The Explorations of Roald Amundsen. Harper & Row.
- Vaeth, J. Gordon (1965). Weather eyes in the sky : America's meteorological satellites. Ronald Press, U.S.
- Vaeth, J. Gordon (1968). Langley, man of science and flight. Ronald Press.
- Vaeth, J. Gordon (1968). The man who founded Georgia. Crowell-Collier Press.
- Vaeth, Joseph G. (1992). Blimps & u-boats: U.S. Navy airships in the battle of the Atlantic. Annapolis, Md: Naval Institute Pr. ISBN 978-1557508768.
- Vaeth, J. Gordon (2005). They Sailed the Skies: U.S. Navy Balloons and the Airship Program.