Franklin C. Anderson was born in Buffalo, New York, on May 31, 1918. His lifelong interest in aviation spanned from wood and fabric biplanes to manned space flight. As a teenager, he enjoyed building balsa wood model airplanes and taking snapshots of airplanes at local airfields for his scrapbook. After graduating from Fosdick-Masten High School in 1935, he entered the Burgard Vocational High School Aviation course. In December 1936, he was hired by the recently formed Bell Aircraft Company at 40-cent per hour to drill holes in wing beam assemblies for the company's first subcontract to build outboard wing assemblies for PBY flying boats. After a riveting experience in the manufacturing shop building the YFM-1 Aircuda and YP-39 Airacobra prototypes, he was promoted to the Engineering Department. In 1940, he matriculated at the University of Michigan where he earned his induction into the Tau Beta Pi international engineering honor society and graduated with a degree in aeronautical engineering in May 1943.
Upon returning to Bell Aircraft, he was quickly immersed in wartime aircraft development putting his engineering degree to use on projects including the P-63 Kingcobra and the XP-77, as well as later models of the P-39. After the end of World War Two, he enjoyed the glory days of transonic and supersonic aircraft research and development as a structural engineer responsible for fuselage development on the X-l, X-l A, and X-2 projects. During this period he was responsible for the variable wing geometry system for the X-5, and structural engineering on the Shrike and Rascal missile systems. In the 1960s, he worked on such diverse projects as the X-22 A Vertical Take Off and Landing aircraft, the SKMR-1 air cushioned vehicle as well as the Agena rocket engine and the Apollo Lunar Module ascent engine.
In 1971, he was transferred to Bell Aerospace Company's New Orleans operations as Chief Engineer in Charge of Structural Design on the SES 100-B Surface Effect Ship and the Landing Craft, Air Cushioned (LCAC) prototype, the JEFF (B). He was a member of the Bell Quarter Century Club, the Bell Management Club, the Aero Club of Buffalo, the American Institute of Aeronautics & Astronautics, and served as the first Chairman of the Bell Humanity Fund. He died on December 4, 1978.