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Wall of Honor Level:
Air and Space Friend

Honored by:
Ile Mae Coyle

Gaylord Grove worked in a variety of aviation related areas, to include armament, avionics, communication, instrumentation and structures.

He was involved in special projects including work on the complete modification and development of the A4 F fighter aircraft for Argentine Air Force at Lockheed Martin in Ontario and Palmdale, CA. He performed the installation of the harnesses & components, and performed electrical and functional testing of systems for the prevention of electromagnetic interference (EMI).

He was assigned to modify C-130 aircraft at Lockheed for the U.S. Air Force, and developed harness runs and separate systems to prevent EMI in communication navigation electronic countermeasures (ECM) systems of the Rivet Fire, Rivet Rider, Senior Scout, World Wide Color TV and Gun Ship Programs.

Grove was assigned to modify the Electrical and Electronic Systems of the new Boeing 747 known as Air Force One (the presidential aircraft).

He was selected for special assignment with the recovery & modification services (RAMS) team fielded by McDonnell Douglas for reconstruction of the American Airlines DC-10 that crashed in Puerto Rico in 1985.

He was chosen by Lockheed to be one of a very small select team to work on a formerly secret project now known as the F-l17A (Nighthawk stealth fighter).

Other special projects included the modification of DC-10's for Tracor Aviation & World Airways, Boeing 747's for Standard Aero & Boeing Co., fatigue testing of the graphite rudder for L-1011 and various tests on the space shuttle orbiter and B-l bomber.

He was assigned to the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) at Edwards Air Force Base, California as an electronic technician to build the complete biomedical laboratory and its biomedical systems.

He has extensive experience in design, fabrication and functional testing of both military and commercial aircraft. Some of the systems include Omega, electronic flight flight instrument system (EFIS), ECM, auto land, flight control, SDS. This included work on aircraft such as L-1011, F-l17A, C-130, Boeing 747's, DC-10's, MD-1 l's, MD-80's Gulfstream G-III and G-IV.

He was an E/E technician on the team of engineers and technicians that designed and installed the cabling and wiring of various research and development systems. He performed the inertial coefficient tests on the space shuttle orbiter, B-l Bomber and secret projects. He performed re-entry temperature tests on the orbiter and fatigue and static tests on the graphite rudder and other projects.