Prof. Harold E. Roland

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Wall of Honor Level:
Air and Space Friend

Honored by:

Harold E. Roland served 22 years in the U.S. Marine Corps flying all the fighters that were in service during the period 1944-1965. He flew in China, Japan and Korea as well as the principal Marine Air bases in the U.S. In Korea, flying the F4U-5N he was part of a small squadron that attacked Chinese truck convoys in North Korea operating under flares, flying about 95 night missions, burning about 100 trucks. He was shot down once, but was able to crash land without injury. He was awarded two Distinguished Flying Crosses and four Air Medals. He was part of the small contingent that first assumed the nuclear delivery capability in the F2H-4 for the west coast and trained in the low altitude nuclear delivery modes. Assigned to the Naval Air Special Weapons Facility at Kirtland AFB, Albuquerque, he developed delivery tactics for the F3H, FJ-4B, and A5 (A3J), and test dropped new nuclear weapons. He was assigned to the Naval Post Graduate School and received a B.S. in Aeronautical Engineering and an M.S. in Aerodynamics from the University of Minnesota. As technical assistant and aide for Marine Corps R&D to the Secretary of Navy for R&D, he participated in decisions involving the development of new aircraft. Retired as a LtCol.
Upon retiring from the Marine Corps he completed his education, receiving a Ph.D. in engineering from UCLA. His dissertation was a computer model that predicted the type of number of commercial aircraft that would be operating on the world’s airways through 2015. This study was funded by the Department of Transportation as part of the Climatic Impact Assessment Program. As a faculty member of the Institute of Safety and Systems Management at the University of Southern California, he taught aviation safety and risk assessment in special courses to the armed forces and to students receiving a Master’s Degree in Safety. He taught courses at Wright-Patterson AFB, NAS Patuxent River, and in Sweden, Germany, Singapore, and South Africa. He lectured on risk assessment in Shenyang and Beijing, China. He testified on the state of aviation safety before a House committee on Aviation Safety chaired by Representative, now Vice President, Gore. He is a consultant on aviation safety and risk assessment and the expert for safety on the A-12 litigation. He has co-authored a book, System Safety Engineering and Management, two editions.