Rudy Frasca Receives Godfrey L. Cabot Award
Rudy Frasca, founder and CEO of Frasca International, received the nationally acclaimed 2009 Godfrey L. Cabot Award from the Aero Club of New England. The presentation was made at the Seaport Hotel in Boston on Friday, June 5, 2009. Frasca received the award in recognition of his lifelong achievements in flight simulation that have enhanced world aviation safety through advances in flight training. Frasca is one of the only privately owned simulator manufacturers in the world. Amazingly enough in an age of global finance, Frasca International remains a family owned Midwestern business in Urbana, Illinois run by Rudy and his son John and other members of the Frasca family. Frasca simulators are built in Urbana, Illinois, not China. Frasca celebrated its 50th anniversary as a company in 2008.
Frasca International has produced more than 2200 flight training devices delivered to 80 countries. The TruFlite and Mentor product lines offer Frasca's leading edge technology and reliabilit. One of Frasca’s newest simulators is the Cessna Mustang Level 5 FTD for Cessna’s successful VLJ. It includes a Mustang G1000 panel and TruVision system with 220 degree visual views. For smaller single engine General Aviation aircraft, Frasca offers the Mentor simulator. It can be ordered with conventional instrumentation or a G1000 or an Avidyne panel. It also includes a TruVision visual system.
Rudy Frasca is also a collector of over 40 vintage and classic aircraft at the Frasca Air Museum. Frasca International and the Frasca Museum are located on Frasca Field, which is also home to the Frasca FBO. The museum contains a number of warbirds, including a P-40, a recently restored Spitfire Mk XVIII, a Wildcat, an SNJ, a T-34, a Fiat, and a Zero replica. Frasca regularly flies the P-40 and other aircraft in the collection. He said his museum will be trading planes with the EAA Museum.
His first plane ride was in J-3 Cub. He first took flying lessons at age 14. From 1949 to 1952, he was a Naval Flight Instructor at the Glenview Naval Station teaching on World War II vintage Link Trainer flight simulators. The Link trainers were based on valves and an air system. After the Korean War, Frasca attended the University of Illinois, where he researched aviation psychology. The more Rudy worked with that early generation of pilot training devices, the more he felt he could do better than what he had seen. He built his first simulator in his garage, and started Frasca Aviation in 1958. In 1983, Frasca used PC technology to go to digital simulation. He bought a 450 acre airport with a 2300 foot east-west strip, now known as Frasca Field. He built a 70,000 sq. ft. factory there in 1990. His company now has 200 employees, half of which are engineers.
In his talk to the Cabot Award Luncheon attendees, Frasca talked about his adventures flying his World War II Grumman Wildcat fighter. He said he bought it for $28,500 and restored it. It is now worth several million dollars. He flew the Wildcat for the movie “Midway”. He then launched into the talk he called “Problem with chewing gum”, a two part tale. The first part concerned an apparent occurrence of the engine running rough. Then the roughness stopped. There were several occurrences of engine roughness. He finally figured out that when he chewed the gum, it changed his perception of the engine noises he was hearing, making him think the engine was running rough.
Which led to the second part of the tale. When he realized what was causing the sensation, he took the gum out of his mouth and stuck it on the side of the cockpit. Which is where it was when he next flew it. Frasca said it takes 29 turns of a crank to raise and lower the landing gear. When he went to raise the landing gear after takeoff, he got the gum on the side of the cockpit on his hand. Then he got it on the control stick. Trying to get the gum off his right hand, he got gum on his left hand holding the stick. He put his left hand back on the throttle and got gum on it too. Before the flight was over he had gotten gum pretty much all over the cockpit!
Asked if he will ever retire, Frasca replied that will probably never retire, but will spend his time working in his museum. Now semi-retired, he says his typical day is now to come in at 10 am, leave at 10:45 am, listen to Rush Limbaugh, and go flying in the afternoon. He said may not be able to keep flying the P-40 as he gets older, but he hopes to keep flying the Luscombe. He is writing a book of his flying stories. He said “I don’t think anybody has any more fun than I do.” And turning to his wife and the mother of his eight children, he said “Thank you, Lucille.”
By James E. Ellis