ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1996, Roanoke Times
DATE: Sunday, June 30, 1996 TAG: 9607010095
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: B-3 EDITION: METRO
TYPE: NEWS OBIT
Charles Fayette Taylor, an engineer who was one of the last living links to the Wright brothers era of aviation and helped to design the engine for the plane that carried Charles Lindbergh across the Atlantic, died June 22 at his home in Weston, Mass. He was 101.
Taylor was on the faculty at Massachusetts Institute of Technology from 1926 until his retirement in 1960. His two-volume text, ``The Internal Combustion Engine in Theory and Practice,'' written several decades ago, remains a primary reference for automotive engineers, MIT said in announcing his death.
In the early 1920s, just after graduating from Yale University with a degree in mechanical engineering and while in charge of the Army's Air Service Laboratory in Dayton, Ohio, Taylor was introduced to Orville Wright.
Soon he was working for Wright Aeronautical Corp., where he was in charge of airplane-engine design and development from 1923 to 1926. He was on the team that designed the air-cooled Whirlwind engine for The Spirit of St. Louis, the craft built by Ryan Airlines of San Diego for Lindbergh's New-York-to-Paris flight in 1927.
Knowing full well that his life depended on the engine (and his ability to stay awake for the 33 and a half hours of the flight), Lindbergh fussed over its assembly. According to one account, a mechanic accidentally cracked a cooling fin. Not content to have the single fin replaced, Lindbergh wanted a whole new section of engine.
``Why?'' the mechanic asked.
``Because I don't swim so well,'' Lindbergh replied.
Surviving Taylor are his wife, who is 98; a son, Philip, of San Carlos, Calif.; seven grandchildren, and 11 great-grandchildren. Another son, Charles Jr., died three years ago.
- The New York Times
LENGTH: Short : 42 linesby CNB