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Day of robot fighters may not be far
By FRANK MACOMBER
Military-Aerospace Writer
Copley News Service
A U. S. Air Force pilot
sometime in the next few
months will dimb into a fighter
cockpit, rev up the engine, taxi
out and take off. Then he’ll
dimb to altitude, trim his
aircraft and turn around to
have a cup of coffee with a
buddy.
Not as fantastic as it sounds.
This sequence will be possible
because the pilot will be flying
what may become the U. S. Air
Force fighter plane of
tomorrow —a remotely con
trolled craft flown by an ear
thbound pilot via television and
radar.
After the coffee, the airman
Tucker Hits High
E' (for Excellence)
In Operas
Toughest Test
By JOYCE GABRIEL
NEW YORK —(NEA)—In
his 25th year as an opera
singer, this year Richard
Tucker met the supreme
test of his talent. He sang in
Parma, Italy, where the Par
mesan (people, not cheese)
act as final judges of who
can sing opera—and who
can’t.
Parma has the dubious dis
tinction of having booed
some of opera’s all-time
greats. The Parmesans don’t
care who you are when you
get there, it’s how you per
form for them that counts.
Tucker is the first Ameri
can tenor to be given a full
vote of confidence—a stand
ing ovation and a lifetime
membership in the Parma
Lyrica Society—from the
perfectionist Parmesans.
In Parma, name means
nothing. “We’ll let you know
what your name is after we
hear you,” the Parmesan
like to say.
Last year, the general di
rector of the Parma Opera
House asked Tucker to per
form there. Tucker’s sched
ule was tentative, but he
said he would contact the di
rector when he was in Italy.
When Tucker went to Flor
ence, he called the director
to ask him to arrange four
performances in Parma.
“When I told people,”
Tucker said, “everyone from
my wife on down looked at
me as if I were the craziest
man in the world. ‘Why take
a chance on ruining your ca
reer?’ they asked me.
“But I’m a pioneer and a
fighter myself—fearful of
nothing. I decided to go.”
Parma was waiting for
him.
“I was doing ‘Trovattore’
will step back to his TV-radar
console to conduct the first
remotely controlled air-to-air
battle ever fought, unless the
Russians get there first.
These and other Buck
Rogerish events will occur
reasonably soon at Edwards
Air Force Base, Calif., and will
involve a Ryan BMQ-34
Firebee 1 drone, modified with
oversize wings and equipped
with a nose-mounted TV
camera and high-speed
computer link.
Enacting the role of a high
performance fighter, the robot
Firebee will go up against a
manned fighter in mock com
bat.
and robot craft in the skies over
the California desert may be
the first tangible step in the
there and, according to the
Parmesan, in that opera ev
erything hinges on the
tenor,” Tucker said. “Some
one in the chorus would call
me every hour at my hotel
to see how I felt and to make
sure I was eating all right.
If the tenor’s no good, the
opera doesn’t begin for
them.”
The tenor was good.
“At the dress rehearsal in
Parma, the men and women
in the chorus started to cry
when I was singing. ‘We
haven’t heard singing like
that in three years,’ they
told me.”
After Tucker sang the aria,
“Di Quella Pira," the chorus
came into his dressing room
and said, “Hail to the chief.”
“Once," Tucker explained,
“the chorus was out of
tempo during the Anvil
Chorus at a performance of
‘Trovattore,’ and hundreds
of voices from the balcony
yelled, ‘Go home and cut
grass,’ to the singers.
“If a performer is one
note off in Parma, they boo
in the middle of a phrase. A
lot of today’s famous opera
singers have been booed
there. I’m the first Ameri
can tenor to make such a
success.”
Tucker isn’t ecstatic over
his Parma success, however.
“I feel at my age I should
do a good job,” he said.
Tucker strives for every
note, every phrase to be per
fect.
“After a Saturday per
formance at the Met, my
son will call me and say,
‘Terrific, the piece de re
sistance.’ But my wife will
come in and say, ‘You know.
I’ve heard you do better.’
She’s my best critic.
“What other tenor’s wife
development of pilotless
combat planes so air wars of
the future could be fought by
remote control.
Thus the project, opposed by
some Air Force traditionalists
but advocated by a gung-ho
group of younger officers, has
reached beyond the long-range
planning stage. The Air Force
has invited 28 U. S. aerospace
firms to submit proposals for
concept studies of the RPVs —
remotely piloted vehicles.
Members of one aerospace
industry team preparing a
proposal are Teledyne Ryan
Aeronautical Co. and RCA.
Long before it was merged with
Teledyne, Ryan was a pioneer
in the drone field. It built the
first ones 22 years ago at San
Diego, Calif., and has been
Richard Tucker
Heavy with the Parmesan.
would have the nerve to say
he could have done better?
But she always wants me to
give my best performance.
We’ve both decided that, as
soon as my B-flats don’t
sound like they should, we’re
quitting this business.”
“Thjs business” began
when Tucker was a poor
Jewish kid growing up on
New York’s Lower East
Side.
“As a boy, I used to stand
outside music stores and
listen to records. I couldn’t
afford to buy any. But I
vowed then that, if God
granted me a voice, I would
become an opera singer.”
Tucker sang in a choir
from the age of 6 and went
on to become a cantor in a
Bronx temple. It was there
that music coach Paul Alt
house heard him and en
couraged him to audition for
New York’s Metropolitan
Opera.
In January, 1945, Richard
Tucker made his debut.
Since then, he has sung with
the stars of the opera world,
including all of the leading
sopranos. Zinka Milanov,
Licia Albanese, Dorothy Kir
sten, Renata Tebaldi, Mar
tina Arroyo, Leontyne Price,
Maria Callas and Joan Suth
erland have all made beauti
ful music with Tucker.
“Women in opera don’t
designing and putting together
drones ever since.
The latest relatives in the
drone family are Firebees I
and 11, the first a subsonic
aerial target, the second a
supersonic version. Firebees
for many years have been a
chief training tool for U.S.
combat airmen in all the
services.
Ryan would provide the
airframe and power plant, RCA
the TV and avionics equipment.
The Air Force has asked for the
RPV proposals by late this
month. They are to include
mission roles for air-to-air
combat; air-to-ground weapons
delivery and reconnaissance.
Under the RPV concept, the
entire face of air war could
change. There no longer would
like tenors. But tenors love
all women,” Tucker says
with a twinkle.
“Two performances were
historic in my career,” said
Tucker. “One was ‘Tosca’
with Renata Tebaldi and the
late Leonard Warren, with
Metropoulis conducting.
There was electricity in the
air that night.
“The other was ‘La Forza
del Destino’ with Milanov
and Warren.”
In 25 years, Tucker has
mastered 31 roles, some that
he waited most of his career
to do.
“There are singers who
ruin their careers by trying
to do heavy roles before
their voices are ready. I
waited 20 years to sing
‘Aida.’ Toscanini once asked
me why I didn’t do it and I
told him I wasn’t ready. The
great conductor stared at
me. Then he said, ‘A tenor
with brains. I can’t believe
it.’
"I’ve waited 25 years to do
‘Pagliacci.’
“I never stop studying and
I never stop learning new
roles. If I stopped, I would
stagnate and go down. But
before that happens, I would
get out.”
If he does, the people in
Parma will probably sob in
the streets.
(NEWSPAPER ENTERPRISE ASSN.)
Griffin Daily News
awav
be close-in dogfights. Pilots
instead would become console
bound jockets operating banks
of consoles in command cen
ters hundreds of miles from the
battle scene. Their weapons
would be electronic and op
tional controls to join the foe in
air-to-air or air-to-ground
combat or to send up a robot
spy to snap TV photos of enemy
positions.
A robot air arm could
materialize by the late 19705.
Air Force advocates claim that
if the RPV project is a success
it could revolutionize aerial
warfare, bring back the
relatively inexpensive mass
produced military aircraft and
all but wipe out pilot losses.
The RPV also could be
developed to achieve a variety
of other missions. It could be
used as a cheap tactical
bomber, either dumping its
weapons and returning home or
plummeting into targets
kamikaze style.
Or the drone could be used as
a tactical decoy, drawing the
fire of enemy antiaircraft guns
and missiles away from
manned aircraft. The ad
ditional role of a TV and
camera-equipped spy plane is
obvious.
Robot designers claim un
manned craft could perform
more effectively than piloted
planes. They could be built, for
example, to withstand the
impact of 12-G sustained
velocity, nearly double the
gravity pull a veteran pilot can
tolerate even briefly.
Their turn rate could be
stepped up to double that of
manned aircraft, thereby
giving them maneuverability
surpassing that of the most
advanced manned fighters
over a broad spectrum of
speeds and altitudes.
The Pentagon’s interest in
the RPV is twofold. Even in the
high-performance aircraft of
today, pilots are becoming
increasingly more vulnerable
to the accurate and deadly fire
of sophisticated antiaircraft
defense.
Moreover, the modern
combat aircraft is so complex
and expensive that air power
seems about to price itself out
of conventional warfare. As the
price per plane climbs, the
number purchased is dropping
with each new generation of
aircraft.
Air force officials point to the
F-47 of World War II which cost
only $89,000, and the F-84 of the
Korean war with a price tag of
$466,000.
Today’s F-4 Phantom sells
for $3 million and tomorrow’s
Air Force F-15 fighter will cost
at least $6 million per copy. The
same sort of climbing price
scale goes for Navy and Marine
Corps aircraft.
On the other hand, one
projected robot fighter that
could be launched from a '
mother ship and recovered
later would cost an estimated
$250,000. It would weigh 3,500
pounds including weapons
payload, have an 18-foot wing
span and could fly at Mach 2.5
— 2 1 -2 times the velocity of
sound —for two minutes of
pursuit.
A robot with a 250-mile range
and a 2,200-pound ammunition
load would cost about $175,000.
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