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Wall of Honor Level:
Air and Space Friend

Honored by:
Dorrien Keown

Vernon I. Weihe was an avionics consultant who helped develop aircraft navigation and communications equipment. Mr. Weihe, who lived in Arlington, was born in Louisville. He graduated from the University of Louisville with a degree in electrical engineering.

For 10 years before and during World War II, he was an Army Air Forces civilian engineer at Wright-Patterson Field in Ohio, where he was chief of the laboratory that developed navigational devices.

In this capacity he played a role in the development of the aircraft radio direction finder, and he worked on long distance navigational devices. He also helped develop instrument landing systems for low visibility landings and radar transponders, which air traffic controllers use to identify and track aircraft.

In 1946 he moved to Washington to work as a systems engineer for the Air Transport Association and later for Link Aviation. For most of his career here he had been a self-employed consultant. At his death, Mr. Weihe was designing a remote-controlled device to prevent ship collisions.

Mr. Weihe was a charter member and former president of the Institute of Navigation.

He had been commodore of the West River Sailing Club and had sailed on the Chesapeake Bay since moving to this area. Mr. Weihe died of a heart attack on June 15, 1993 on his sailboat in the Chesapeake Bay while on the annual cruise of the West River Sailing Club.