title: VHF omnidirectional range

text: If a pilot wants to approach the VOR station from due east then the aircraft will have to fly due west to reach the station. The pilot will use the OBS to rotate the compass dial until the number 27 (270°) aligns with the pointer (called the "primary index") at the top of the dial. When the aircraft intercepts the 90° radial (due east of the VOR station) the needle will be centered and the To/From indicator will show "To". Notice that the pilot sets the VOR to indicate the reciprocal; the aircraft will follow the 90° radial while the VOR indicates that the course "to" the VOR station is 270°. This is called "proceeding inbound on the 090 radial." The pilot needs only to keep the needle centered to follow the course to the VOR station. If the needle drifts off-center the aircraft would be turned towards the needle until it is centered again. After the aircraft passes over the VOR station the To/From indicator will indicate "From" and the aircraft is then proceeding outbound on the 270° radial. The CDI needle may oscillate or go to full scale in the "cone of confusion" directly over the station but will recenter once the aircraft has flown a short distance beyond the station.


title: VHF omnidirectional range

text: In the illustration on the right, notice that the heading ring is set with 360° (north) at the primary index, the needle is centred and the To/From indicator is showing "TO". The VOR is indicating that the aircraft is on the 360° course (north) "to" the VOR station (i.e. the aircraft is "south" of the VOR station). If the To/From indicator were showing "From" it would mean the aircraft was on the 360° radial "from" the VOR station (i.e. the aircraft is "north" of the VOR). Note that there is absolutely no indication of what direction the aircraft is flying. The aircraft could be flying due West and this snapshot of the VOR could be the moment when it crossed the 360° radial.


title: VHF omnidirectional range

text: Before using a VOR indicator for the first time, it can be tested and calibrated at an airport with a "VOR test facility", or VOT. A VOT differs from a VOR in that it replaces the variable directional signal with another omnidirectional signal, in a sense transmitting a 360° radial in all directions. The NAV receiver is tuned to the VOT frequency, then the OBS is rotated until the needle is centred. If the indicator reads within four degrees of 000 with the FROM flag visible or 180 with the TO flag visible, it is considered usable for navigation. The FAA requires testing and calibration of a VOR indicator no more than 30 days before any flight under IFR.


title: VHF omnidirectional range

text: There are many methods available to determine what heading to fly to intercept a radial from the station or a course to the station. The most common method involves the acronym T-I-T-P-I-T. The acronym stands for Tune – Identify – Twist – Parallel – Intercept – Track. Each of these steps are quite important to ensure the aircraft is headed where it is being directed. First, tune the desired VOR frequency into the navigation radio, second and most important, Identify the correct VOR station by verifying the Morse code heard with the sectional chart. Third, twist the VOR OBS knob to the desired radial (FROM) or course (TO) the station. Fourth, bank the aircraft until the heading indicator indicates the radial or course set in the VOR. The fifth step is to fly towards the needle. If the needle is to the left, turn left by 30–45° and vice versa. The last step is once the VOR needle is centred, turn the heading of the aircraft back to the radial or course to track down the radial or course flown. If there is wind, a wind correction angle will be necessary to maintain the VOR needle centred.


title: VHF omnidirectional range

text: Another method to intercept a VOR radial exists and more closely aligns itself with the operation of an HSI (Horizontal Situation Indicator). The first three steps above are the same; tune, identify and twist. At this point, the VOR needle should be displaced to either the left or the right. Looking at the VOR indicator, the numbers on the same side as the needle will always be the headings needed to return the needle back to centre. The aircraft heading should then be turned to align itself with one of those shaded headings. If done properly, this method will produce reverse sensing. Using this method will ensure quick understanding of how an HSI works as the HSI visually shows what we are mentally trying to do.


title: VHF omnidirectional range

text: In the adjacent diagram, an aircraft is flying a heading of 180° while located at a bearing of 315° from the VOR. After twisting the OBS knob to 360°, the needle deflects to the right. The needle "shades" the numbers between 360 and 090. If the aircraft turns to a heading anywhere in this range, the aircraft will intercept the radial. Although the needle deflects to the right, the shortest way of turning to the shaded range is a turn to the left.


title: Modern portfolio theory

text: Modern portfolio theory (MPT), or mean-variance analysis, is a mathematical framework for assembling a portfolio of assets such that the expected return is maximized for a given level of risk. It is a formalization and extension of diversification in investing, the idea that owning different kinds of financial assets is less risky than owning only one type. Its key insight is that an asset's risk and return should not be assessed by itself, but by how it contributes to a portfolio's overall risk and return. It uses the variance of asset prices as a proxy for risk.


title: Modern portfolio theory

text: Economist Harry Markowitz introduced MPT in a 1952 essay, for which he was later awarded a Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences; see Markowitz model.


title: Modern portfolio theory

text: MPT assumes that investors are risk averse, meaning that given two portfolios that offer the same expected return, investors will prefer the less risky one. Thus, an investor will take on increased risk only if compensated by higher expected returns. Conversely, an investor who wants higher expected returns must accept more risk. The exact trade-off will not be the same for all investors. Different investors will evaluate the trade-off differently based on individual risk aversion characteristics. The implication is that a rational investor will not invest in a portfolio if a second portfolio exists with a more favorable risk-expected return profile—i.e., if for that level of risk an alternative portfolio exists that has better expected returns.


title: Modern portfolio theory

text: An investor can reduce portfolio risk (especially formula_1) simply by holding combinations of instruments that are not perfectly positively correlated (correlation coefficient formula_24). In other words, investors can reduce their exposure to individual asset risk by holding a diversified portfolio of assets. Diversification may allow for the same portfolio expected return with reduced risk. The mean-variance framework for constructing optimal investment portfolios was first posited by Markowitz and has since been reinforced and improved by other economists and mathematicians who went on to account for the limitations of the framework.


title: Modern portfolio theory

text: If all the asset pairs have correlations of 0—they are perfectly uncorrelated—the portfolio's return variance is the sum over all assets of the square of the fraction held in the asset times the asset's return variance (and the portfolio standard deviation is the square root of this sum).


title: Modern portfolio theory

text: If all the asset pairs have correlations of 1—they are perfectly positively correlated—then the portfolio return’s standard deviation is the sum of the asset returns’ standard deviations weighted by the fractions held in the portfolio. For given portfolio weights and given standard deviations of asset returns, the case of all correlations being 1 gives the highest possible standard deviation of portfolio return.


title: Modern portfolio theory

text: The MPT is a mean-variance theory, and it compares the expected (mean) return of a portfolio with the standard deviation of the same portfolio. The image shows expected return on the vertical axis, and the standard deviation on the horizontal axis (volatility). Volatility is described by standard deviation and it serves as a measure of risk. The return - standard deviation space is sometimes called the space of 'expected return vs risk'. Every possible combination of risky assets, can be plotted in this risk-expected return space, and the collection of all such possible portfolios defines a region in this space. The left boundary of this region is hyperbolic, and the upper part of the hyperbolic boundary is the "efficient frontier" in the absence of a risk-free asset (sometimes called "the Markowitz bullet"). Combinations along this upper edge represent portfolios (including no holdings of the risk-free asset) for which there is lowest risk for a given level of expected return. Equivalently, a portfolio lying on the efficient frontier represents the combination offering the best possible expected return for given risk level. The tangent to the upper part of the hyperbolic boundary is the capital allocation line (CAL).


title: Modern portfolio theory

text: In matrix form, for a given "risk tolerance" formula_25, the efficient frontier is found by minimizing the following expression:


title: Modern portfolio theory

text: The above optimization finds the point on the frontier at which the inverse of the slope of the frontier would be "q" if portfolio return variance instead of standard deviation were plotted horizontally. The frontier in its entirety is parametric on "q".


title: Modern portfolio theory

text: Harry Markowitz developed a specific procedure for solving the above problem, called the critical line algorithm, that can handle additional linear constraints, upper and lower bounds on assets, and which is proved to work with a semi-positive definite covariance matrix. Examples of implementation of the critical line algorithm exist in Visual Basic for Applications, in JavaScript and in a few other languages.


title: Modern portfolio theory

text: Also, many software packages, including MATLAB, Microsoft Excel, Mathematica and R, provide generic optimization routines so that using these for solving the above problem is possible, with potential caveats (poor numerical accuracy, requirement of positive definiteness of the covariance matrix...).


title: Modern portfolio theory

text: An alternative approach to specifying the efficient frontier is to do so parametrically on the expected portfolio return formula_35 This version of the problem requires that we minimize


title: Modern portfolio theory

text: for parameter formula_38. This problem is easily solved using a Lagrange multiplier which leads to the following linear system of equations:


title: Modern portfolio theory

text: One key result of the above analysis is the two mutual fund theorem. This theorem states that any portfolio on the efficient frontier can be generated by holding a combination of any two given portfolios on the frontier; the latter two given portfolios are the "mutual funds" in the theorem's name. So in the absence of a risk-free asset, an investor can achieve any desired efficient portfolio even if all that is accessible is a pair of efficient mutual funds. If the location of the desired portfolio on the frontier is between the locations of the two mutual funds, both mutual funds will be held in positive quantities. If the desired portfolio is outside the range spanned by the two mutual funds, then one of the mutual funds must be sold short (held in negative quantity) while the size of the investment in the other mutual fund must be greater than the amount available for investment (the excess being funded by the borrowing from the other fund).


title: Modern portfolio theory

text: The risk-free asset is the (hypothetical) asset that pays a risk-free rate. In practice, short-term government securities (such as US treasury bills) are used as a risk-free asset, because they pay a fixed rate of interest and have exceptionally low default risk. The risk-free asset has zero variance in returns (hence is risk-free); it is also uncorrelated with any other asset (by definition, since its variance is zero). As a result, when it is combined with any other asset or portfolio of assets, the change in return is linearly related to the change in risk as the proportions in the combination vary.


title: Modern portfolio theory

text: When a risk-free asset is introduced, the half-line shown in the figure is the new efficient frontier. It is tangent to the parabola at the pure risky portfolio with the highest Sharpe ratio. Its vertical intercept represents a portfolio with 100% of holdings in the risk-free asset; the tangency with the parabola represents a portfolio with no risk-free holdings and 100% of assets held in the portfolio occurring at the tangency point; points between those points are portfolios containing positive amounts of both the risky tangency portfolio and the risk-free asset; and points on the half-line beyond the tangency point are portfolios involving negative holdings of the risk-free asset and an amount invested in the tangency portfolio equal to more than 100% of the investor's initial capital. This efficient half-line is called the capital allocation line (CAL), and its formula can be shown to be


title: Modern portfolio theory

text: In this formula "P" is the sub-portfolio of risky assets at the tangency with the Markowitz bullet, "F" is the risk-free asset, and "C" is a combination of portfolios "P" and "F".


title: Modern portfolio theory

text: By the diagram, the introduction of the risk-free asset as a possible component of the portfolio has improved the range of risk-expected return combinations available, because everywhere except at the tangency portfolio the half-line gives a higher expected return than the parabola does at every possible risk level. The fact that all points on the linear efficient locus can be achieved by a combination of holdings of the risk-free asset and the tangency portfolio is known as the one mutual fund theorem, where the mutual fund referred to is the tangency portfolio.


title: Modern portfolio theory

text: The above analysis describes optimal behavior of an individual investor. Asset pricing theory builds on this analysis in the following way. Since everyone holds the risky assets in identical proportions to each other—namely in the proportions given by the tangency portfolio—in market equilibrium the risky assets' prices, and therefore their expected returns, will adjust so that the ratios in the tangency portfolio are the same as the ratios in which the risky assets are supplied to the market. Thus relative supplies will equal relative demands. MPT derives the required expected return for a correctly priced asset in this context.


title: Modern portfolio theory

text: Specific risk is the risk associated with individual assets - within a portfolio these risks can be reduced through diversification (specific risks "cancel out"). Specific risk is also called diversifiable, unique, unsystematic, or idiosyncratic risk. Systematic risk (a.k.a. portfolio risk or market risk) refers to the risk common to all securities—except for selling short as noted below, systematic risk cannot be diversified away (within one market). Within the market portfolio, asset specific risk will be diversified away to the extent possible. Systematic risk is therefore equated with the risk (standard deviation) of the market portfolio.


title: Modern portfolio theory

text: Since a security will be purchased only if it improves the risk-expected return characteristics of the market portfolio, the relevant measure of the risk of a security is the risk it adds to the market portfolio, and not its risk in isolation.


title: Modern portfolio theory

text: In this context, the volatility of the asset, and its correlation with the market portfolio, are historically observed and are therefore given. (There are several approaches to asset pricing that attempt to price assets by modelling the stochastic properties of the moments of assets' returns - these are broadly referred to as conditional asset pricing models.)


title: Modern portfolio theory

text: Systematic risks within one market can be managed through a strategy of using both long and short positions within one portfolio, creating a "market neutral" portfolio. Market neutral portfolios, therefore, will be uncorrelated with broader market indices.


title: Modern portfolio theory

text: The asset return depends on the amount paid for the asset today. The price paid must ensure that the market portfolio's risk / return characteristics improve when the asset is added to it. The CAPM is a model that derives the theoretical required expected return (i.e., discount rate) for an asset in a market, given the risk-free rate available to investors and the risk of the market as a whole. The CAPM is usually expressed:


title: Modern portfolio theory

text: (1) The incremental impact on risk and expected return when an additional risky asset, a, is added to the market portfolio, m, follows from the formulae for a two-asset portfolio. These results are used to derive the asset-appropriate discount rate.


title: Modern portfolio theory

text: (2) If an asset, a, is correctly priced, the improvement in its risk-to-expected return ratio achieved by adding it to the market portfolio, m, will at least match the gains of spending that money on an increased stake in the market portfolio. The assumption is that the investor will purchase the asset with funds borrowed at the risk-free rate, formula_49; this is rational if formula_50.


title: Modern portfolio theory

text: where α is called the asset's alpha, β is the asset's beta coefficient and SCL is the security characteristic line.


title: Modern portfolio theory

text: Once an asset's expected return, formula_57, is calculated using CAPM, the future cash flows of the asset can be discounted to their present value using this rate to establish the correct price for the asset. A riskier stock will have a higher beta and will be discounted at a higher rate; less sensitive stocks will have lower betas and be discounted at a lower rate. In theory, an asset is correctly priced when its observed price is the same as its value calculated using the CAPM derived discount rate. If the observed price is higher than the valuation, then the asset is overvalued; it is undervalued for a too low price.


title: Modern portfolio theory

text: Despite its theoretical importance, critics of MPT question whether it is an ideal investment tool, because its model of financial markets does not match the real world in many ways.


title: Modern portfolio theory

text: The risk, return, and correlation measures used by MPT are based on expected values, which means that they are statistical statements about the future (the expected value of returns is explicit in the above equations, and implicit in the definitions of variance and covariance). Such measures often cannot capture the true statistical features of the risk and return which often follow highly skewed distributions (e.g. the log-normal distribution) and can give rise to, besides reduced volatility, also inflated growth of return. In practice, investors must substitute predictions based on historical measurements of asset return and volatility for these values in the equations. Very often such expected values fail to take account of new circumstances that did not exist when the historical data were generated.


title: Modern portfolio theory

text: More fundamentally, investors are stuck with estimating key parameters from past market data because MPT attempts to model risk in terms of the likelihood of losses, but says nothing about why those losses might occur. The risk measurements used are probabilistic in nature, not structural. This is a major difference as compared to many engineering approaches to risk management.


title: Modern portfolio theory

text: Mathematical risk measurements are also useful only to the degree that they reflect investors' true concerns—there is no point minimizing a variable that nobody cares about in practice. In particular, variance is a symmetric measure that counts abnormally high returns as just as risky as abnormally low returns. The psychological phenomenon of loss aversion is the idea that investors are more concerned about losses than gains, meaning that our intuitive concept of risk is fundamentally asymmetric in nature. There many other risk measures (like coherent risk measures) might better reflect investors' true preferences.


title: Modern portfolio theory

text: Modern portfolio theory has also been criticized because it assumes that returns follow a Gaussian distribution. Already in the 1960s, Benoit Mandelbrot and Eugene Fama showed the inadequacy of this assumption and proposed the use of more general stable distributions instead. Stefan Mittnik and Svetlozar Rachev presented strategies for deriving optimal portfolios in such settings. More recently, Nassim Nicholas Taleb has also criticized modern portfolio theory on this ground, writing:


title: Modern portfolio theory

text: Contrarian investors and value investors typically do not subscribe to Modern Portfolio Theory. One objection is that the MPT relies on the efficient-market hypothesis and uses fluctuations in share price as a substitute for risk.


title: Modern portfolio theory

text: A few studies have argued that "naive diversification", splitting capital equally among available investment options, might have advantages over MPT in some situations.


title: Modern portfolio theory

text: Since MPT's introduction in 1952, many attempts have been made to improve the model, especially by using more realistic assumptions.


title: Modern portfolio theory

text: Post-modern portfolio theory extends MPT by adopting non-normally distributed, asymmetric, and fat-tailed measures of risk. This helps with some of these problems, but not others.


title: Modern portfolio theory

text: Black–Litterman model optimization is an extension of unconstrained Markowitz optimization that incorporates relative and absolute 'views' on inputs of risk and returns from.


title: Modern portfolio theory

text: Modern portfolio theory is inconsistent with main axioms of rational choice theory, most notably with monotonicity axiom, stating that, if investing into portfolio "X" will, with probability one, return more money than investing into portfolio "Y", then a rational investor should prefer "X" to "Y". In contrast, modern portfolio theory is based on a different axiom, called variance aversion,


title: Modern portfolio theory

text: and may recommend to invest into "Y" on the basis that it has lower variance. Maccheroni et al. described choice theory which is the closest possible to the modern portfolio theory, while satisfying monotonicity axiom. Alternatively, mean-deviation analysis


title: Modern portfolio theory

text: is a rational choice theory resulting from replacing variance by an appropriate deviation risk measure.


title: Modern portfolio theory

text: In the 1970s, concepts from MPT found their way into the field of regional science. In a series of seminal works, Michael Conroy modeled the labor force in the economy using portfolio-theoretic methods to examine growth and variability in the labor force. This was followed by a long literature on the relationship between economic growth and volatility.


title: Modern portfolio theory

text: More recently, modern portfolio theory has been used to model the self-concept in social psychology. When the self attributes comprising the self-concept constitute a well-diversified portfolio, then psychological outcomes at the level of the individual such as mood and self-esteem should be more stable than when the self-concept is undiversified. This prediction has been confirmed in studies involving human subjects.


title: Modern portfolio theory

text: Recently, modern portfolio theory has been applied to modelling the uncertainty and correlation between documents in information retrieval. Given a query, the aim is to maximize the overall relevance of a ranked list of documents and at the same time minimize the overall uncertainty of the ranked list.


title: Modern portfolio theory

text: Some experts apply MPT to portfolios of projects and other assets besides financial instruments. When MPT is applied outside of traditional financial portfolios, some distinctions between the different types of portfolios must be considered.


title: Modern portfolio theory

text: Neither of these necessarily eliminate the possibility of using MPT and such portfolios. They simply indicate the need to run the optimization with an additional set of mathematically expressed constraints that would not normally apply to financial portfolios.


title: Modern portfolio theory

text: Furthermore, some of the simplest elements of Modern Portfolio Theory are applicable to virtually any kind of portfolio. The concept of capturing the risk tolerance of an investor by documenting how much risk is acceptable for a given return may be applied to a variety of decision analysis problems. MPT uses historical variance as a measure of risk, but portfolios of assets like major projects do not have a well-defined "historical variance". In this case, the MPT investment boundary can be expressed in more general terms like "chance of an ROI less than cost of capital" or "chance of losing more than half of the investment". When risk is put in terms of uncertainty about forecasts and possible losses then the concept is transferable to various types of investment.


title: The Streets

text: The project has released six studio albums: "Original Pirate Material" (2002), "A Grand Don't Come for Free" (2004), "The Hardest Way to Make an Easy Living" (2006), "Everything Is Borrowed" (2008), "Computers and Blues" (2011), an internet-only album "Cyberspace and Reds" (2011) and a string of successful singles in the mid-2000s, including "Has It Come to This?", "Fit but You Know It", "Dry Your Eyes", "When You Wasn't Famous" and "Prangin' Out".


title: The Streets

text: Mike Skinner sent a demo tape to a record shop in north London, run by A&R Nick Worthington. The song developed into Skinner's first single, "Has It Come to This?", and was released under the name The Streets. The song peaked at number 18 on the UK Singles Chart in October 2001.


title: The Streets

text: The Streets' debut album, "Original Pirate Material", was released in March 2002. The album was successful both with critics and the general public. In the UK, the album was nominated for the Mercury Prize. "Original Pirate Material" was nominated for British Album of the Year, and The Streets was nominated for British Urban Act, British Breakthrough Act and British Male Solo Artist at the 2003 BRIT Awards. "NME" named "Original Pirate Material" as the third best album of 2002. Subsequent singles from "Original Pirate Material" include "Don't Mug Yourself", "Weak Become Heroes" and "Let's Push Things Forward".


title: The Streets

text: In May 2004, Skinner released the single "Fit but You Know It", which peaked at number 4 on the UK Singles Chart. The single was later used by EA Sports as part of the soundtrack for its video game "FIFA Football 2005". "Fit But You Know It" appeared on The Streets' second album, "A Grand Don't Come for Free". The album entered the UK album charts at number two, but later reached number one after six weeks. The album's second single, "Dry Your Eyes", debuted at the top of the chart in the UK. "Blinded by the Lights", the third single from "A Grand Don't Come for Free", peaked at number 10 on the UK Singles Chart in 2004.


title: The Streets

text: The Streets' third studio album, "The Hardest Way to Make an Easy Living", was released on 10 April 2006. In the UK it debuted the album chart at number one.


title: The Streets

text: In September 2008, The Streets released their fourth studio album, "Everything Is Borrowed". One song from the album was on Skinner's Myspace page for a while before being replaced by a cover of "Your Song". In a posting on his Myspace blog, Skinner noted that the group's upcoming LP would contain "peaceful, positive vibes" in comparison with 2006's "weird guilt-ridden indulgence" that was "The Hardest Way To Make An Easy Living."


title: The Streets

text: In a blurb about the album on Skinner's Myspace, he says, "This album started off life as parables but then I realised that it might get a bit cheesy so I got rid of the alien song and the devil song replaced them with more straight up songs. I've pretty much kept my promise that I made to myself not to reference modern life on any of them though which is hard to do and keep things personal at the same time."


title: The Streets

text: In November 2010, Skinner announced on the official The Streets website, that he would release what he referred to as a mixtape album called "Cyberspace and Reds", consisting of various recordings he had made since he had finished work on the final Streets album, "Computers and Blues". "Cyberspace and Reds" was released in January 2011, initially only for download via the Streets iPhone app. A so-called "deluxe" edition was later made available for general download through the Streets website.


title: The Streets

text: The final Streets album, "Computers and Blues", was released on 7 February 2011, the first single being "Going Through Hell".


title: The Streets

text: On 22 December 2017, The Streets released two new tracks: "Burn Bridges" and "Sometimes I Hate My Friends More Than My Enemies". It was The Streets' first new music released in six years.


title: The Streets

text: In 2018, The Streets released three singles: "If You Ever Need to Talk I'm Here" was released on 31 January, "You Are Not the Voice in Your Head..." was released on 30 March, and "Call Me in the Morning" was released on 22 November.


title: The Streets

text: On 1 April 2020, Skinner announced a new single featuring Australian music project Tame Impala, included on a mixtape titled "None of Us Are Getting Out of This Life Alive", released 10 July 2020. The track premiered on Annie Mac's BBC Radio 1 show.


title: The Streets

text: In March 2021, following the UK Government's announced COVID-19 restriction easing timetable, The Streets released the single "Who's Got the Bag (21st June)". Referencing the earliest possible date when nightclubs could reopen and the names of members of government the single was described by Skinner as a "protest song".


title: The Streets

text: "None of Us Are Getting Out of This Life Alive" is a mixtape by English rapper and producer Mike Skinner, under his music project The Streets. It was released on 10 July 2020 under Island Records.(24)


title: Frank Borman

text: Frank Frederick Borman II (born March 14, 1928) is a retired United States Air Force (USAF) colonel, aeronautical engineer, test pilot, businessman, and NASA astronaut. He was the commander of Apollo 8, the first mission to fly around the Moon, and together with crewmates Jim Lovell and William Anders, became the first of 24 humans to do so, for which he was awarded the Congressional Space Medal of Honor. , he is the oldest living former American astronaut, eleven days older than Lovell.


title: Frank Borman

text: Four days before he graduated with the West Point Class of 1950, in which he was ranked eighth out of 670, Borman was commissioned in the USAF. He qualified as a fighter pilot and served in the Philippines. He earned a Master of Science degree at Caltech in 1957, and then became an assistant professor of thermodynamics and fluid mechanics at West Point. In 1960, he was selected for Class 60-C at the USAF Experimental Flight Test Pilot School at Edwards Air Force Base in California and qualified as a test pilot. On graduation, he was accepted as one of five students in the first class at the Aerospace Research Pilot School.


title: Frank Borman

text: Borman was selected as a NASA astronaut with the second group, known as the Next Nine, in 1962. In 1966, he set a fourteen-day spaceflight endurance record as commander of Gemini 7. He served on the NASA review board which investigated the Apollo 1 fire, and then flew to the Moon with Apollo 8 in December 1968. The mission is known for the "Earthrise" photograph taken by Anders of the Earth rising above the lunar horizon as the Command/Service Module orbited the Moon, and for the reading from Genesis, which was televised to Earth from lunar orbit on Christmas Eve. During the Apollo 11 Moon landing mission, he was the NASA liaison at the White House, where he viewed the launch on television with President Richard Nixon.


title: Frank Borman

text: After retiring from NASA and the Air Force in 1970, Borman became senior vice president for operations at Eastern Air Lines. He became chief executive officer of Eastern in 1975, and chairman of the board in 1976. Under his leadership, Eastern went through the four most profitable years in its history, but airline deregulation and the additional debt that he took on to purchase new aircraft led to pay cuts and layoffs, and ultimately to conflict with unions, resulting in his resignation in 1986. He moved to Las Cruces, New Mexico, where he ran a Ford dealership with his son, Fred. In 1998, they bought a cattle ranch in Bighorn, Montana.


title: Frank Borman

text: Frank Frederick Borman II was born on March 14, 1928, at 2162 West 11th Avenue in Gary, Indiana, the only child of Edwin Otto Borman (1901–1994) and his wife Marjorie Ann Borman ( Pearce), who named him after his paternal grandfather. He is of German descent. Because he suffered from numerous sinus and mastoid problems in the cold and damp weather, his family moved to the better climate of Tucson, Arizona, which Borman considers his hometown. His father bought a lease on a Mobil service station.


title: Frank Borman

text: Borman attended Sam Hughes Elementary School in Tucson, where he played soccer and baseball. He then went to Mansfeld Junior High School, where he tried out for the football team. He was not good enough, so he formed his own team with some local boys, sponsored by a local jewelry store. He earned some money with a newspaper route, delivering copies of the "Arizona Daily Star".


title: Frank Borman

text: After Mansfeld, Borman went on to Tucson High School, where he was an honor student. He played quarterback on the junior varsity team, and then became the second-string quarterback on the varsity team. The first-string quarterback broke his arm during the first game, and was out for most of the season. Although every one of the four forward passes he attempted that year was incomplete, the team went on to win the state championship. He also started dating Susan Bugbee, a sophomore at his school.


title: Frank Borman

text: After the United States entered World War II in 1941, his parents found work at a new Consolidated Vultee aircraft factory in Tucson. His first ride in an airplane had been when he was five years old. He learned to fly at the age of 15, taking lessons with a female instructor, Bobbie Kroll, at Gilpin Field. When he obtained his student pilot's license, he joined a local flying club. He also built model airplanes out of balsa wood.


title: Frank Borman

text: Borman was helping a friend build model planes, when his friend's father asked him about his plans for the future. Borman told him that he wanted to go to college and study aeronautical engineering, but his parents did not have the money to send him to an out-of-state university, and neither the University of Arizona nor Arizona State University offered top-notch courses in aeronautical engineering at that time. His football skills were insufficient to secure an athletic scholarship, and he lacked the political connections to secure an appointment to the United States Military Academy at West Point. He therefore planned to join the Army, which would allow him to qualify for free college tuition under the G.I. Bill.


title: Frank Borman

text: His friend's father told him that he knew Richard F. Harless, the congressman who represented Arizona. Harless already had a principal nominee for West Point, but Borman's friend's father convinced Harless to list Borman as a third alternative. Borman took the West Point entrance examination, but since his chances of a West Point appointment were slim, he also took the Army physical, and passed both. But the end of the war had changed attitudes towards joining the military, and the three nominees ahead of him all dropped out. Instead of reporting to Fort MacArthur on graduation from high school, he went to West Point.


title: Frank Borman

text: Borman entered West Point on July 1, 1946, with the Class of 1950. It was a difficult year to enter. Many members of the class were older than him, and had seen active service in World War II. Hazing by the upperclassmen was common. Another challenge was learning how to swim. He tried out for the plebe football team; his skills were insufficient but head coach Earl Blaik took him on as an assistant manager. In his final year, Borman was a cadet captain, commanding his company, and manager of the varsity football team.


title: Frank Borman

text: Borman chose to be commissioned as a second lieutenant in the United States Air Force (USAF) on June 2, 1950. Before the United States Air Force Academy was built, the USAF was authorized to accept up to a quarter of each West Point graduating class. So that USAF officers graduating from West Point had equal seniority with those graduating from the United States Naval Academy, the entire class was commissioned four days ahead of their graduation. Borman graduated with his Bachelor of Science degree on June 6, 1950, ranked eighth in his class of 670.


title: Frank Borman

text: Borman drove back to Tucson with his parents in his brand-new Oldsmobile 88 for the traditional sixty-day furlough after graduation. He had split up with Susan while he was at West Point, but had since reconsidered. She had earned a dental hygiene degree at the University of Pennsylvania, and was planning to commence a liberal arts degree at the University of Arizona. He persuaded her to see him again, and proposed to her. She accepted, and they were married on July 20, 1950, at St. Philip's in the Hills Episcopal Church in Tucson.


title: Frank Borman

text: After a brief honeymoon in Phoenix, Arizona, Borman reported to Perrin Air Force Base in Texas for basic flight training in a North American T-6 Texan in August 1950. The top students in the class had the privilege of choosing which branch of flying they would pursue; Borman elected to become a fighter pilot. He was therefore sent to Williams Air Force Base, near Phoenix, in February 1951 for advanced training, initially in the North American T-28 Trojan, and then the F-80 jet fighter. Fighter pilots were being sent to Korea, where the Korean War had broken out the year before. He asked for, and was assigned to, Luke Air Force Base near Phoenix—Susan was eight months pregnant—but at the last minute his orders were changed to Nellis Air Force Base in Nevada. There, he practiced aerial bombing and gunnery. His first child, a son called Frederick Pearce, was born there in October. Borman received his pilot wings on December 4, 1951.


title: Frank Borman

text: Soon after, Borman suffered a perforated eardrum while practicing dive bombing with a bad head cold. Instead of going to Korea, he was ordered to report to Camp Stoneman, from whence he boarded a troop transport, the on December 20, 1951, bound for the Philippines. Susan sold the Oldsmobile to buy air tickets to join him. He was assigned to the 44th Fighter-Bomber Squadron, which was based at Clark Air Base, and commanded by Major Charles McGee, a veteran fighter pilot. Initially, Borman was restricted to non-flying duties due to his eardrum; although it had healed, the base doctors feared it would rupture again if he flew. He persuaded McGee to take him for flights in a T-6, and then a Lockheed T-33, the trainer version of the Shooting Star. This convinced the doctors, and Borman's flight status was restored on September 22, 1952. His second son, Edwin Sloan, was born at Clark in July 1952.


title: Frank Borman

text: Borman returned to the United States, where he became a jet instrument flight instructor at Moody Air Force Base in Georgia, mainly in the T-33. In 1955, he secured a transfer to Luke Air Force Base. Most of his flying was in F-80s, F-84s, swept-wing F-84Fs and T-33s. In 1956, he received orders to join the faculty at West Point, after first completing a master's degree in aeronautical engineering. Not wanting to spend two years qualifying for a non-flying posting that could last for another three years, he searched for a master's degree course that took only one year, and settled on the one at the California Institute of Technology. He received his Master of Science degree in aeronautical engineering in June 1957, and then became an assistant professor of thermodynamics and fluid mechanics at West Point, where he served until 1960. He found he enjoyed teaching, and was still able to fly a T-33 from Stewart Air Force Base on weekends. One summer he also attended the USAF Survival School at Stead Air Force Base in Nevada.


title: Frank Borman

text: In June 1960, Borman was selected for Class 60-C at the USAF Experimental Flight Test Pilot School at Edwards Air Force Base in California, and became a test pilot. His class, which included Michael Collins and James B. Irwin, who also later became astronauts, graduated on April 21, 1961. Thomas P. Stafford, another future astronaut, was one of the instructors. On graduation, Borman was accepted as one of five students in the first class at the Aerospace Research Pilot School, a postgraduate school for test pilots to prepare them to become astronauts. Fellow members of the class included future astronaut Jim McDivitt. Classes included a course on orbital mechanics at the University of Michigan, and there were zero-G flights in modified Boeing KC-135 Stratotanker and Convair C-131 Samaritan aircraft. Borman introduced training with the Lockheed F-104 Starfighter. It would be flown up to , where the engine would cut out for lack of oxygen, and then coast up to . This would be followed by a powerless descent, and restarting the engine on the way down. A pressure suit was required.


title: Frank Borman

text: On April 18, 1962, NASA formally announced that it was accepting applications for a new group of astronauts who would assist the Mercury Seven astronauts selected in 1959 with Project Mercury, and join them in flying Project Gemini missions. The USAF conducted its own internal selection process, and submitted the names of eleven candidates. It ran them through a brief training course in May 1962 on how to speak and conduct themselves during the NASA selection process. The candidates called it a "charm school". Borman's selection as one of the Next Nine was publicly announced on September 17, 1962. Chuck Yeager, the commandant of the USAF Test Pilot School at Edwards, told him: "you can kiss your godamned Air Force career goodbye." During his Air Force service, Borman logged 3,600 hours of flying time, of which 3,000 was in jet aircraft.


title: Frank Borman

text: Borman moved with his family to Houston, Texas, where the Manned Spacecraft Center (MSC) was still being established, and signed his first home construction contract, for $26,500 (). Following the precedent set by the Mercury Seven, each of the Nine was assigned a special area in which to develop expertise that could be shared with the others, and to provide astronaut input to the designers and engineers. Borman's assignment was the Titan II booster used by Project Gemini, although he had no experience in that area. The assignment involved many trips to the Martin Marietta plants in Denver, Colorado, and Baltimore, Maryland, where the Titan IIs were built. His responsibility included the Emergency Detection System (EDS) developed for an abort situation. Borman agreed with Wernher von Braun that reliance would have to be placed on automated systems in situations where human reaction time would not be fast enough. This was much to the consternation of old hands like Warren J. North, the NASA Chief of the Flight Crew Support Division, who did not accept the notion that an automated system was superior to the skill of a human being.


title: Frank Borman

text: There was also classroom work. Initially, each of the astronauts was given four months of classroom instruction on subjects such as spacecraft propulsion, orbital mechanics, astronomy, computing, and space medicine. There was also familiarization with the Gemini spacecraft, Titan II and Atlas boosters, and the Agena target vehicle. Jungle survival training was conducted at the USAF Tropic Survival School at Albrook Air Force Station in Panama, desert survival training at Stead Air Force Base in Nevada, and water survival training on the Dilbert Dunker at the Naval Air Station Pensacola in Florida and on Galveston Bay. There were fifty hours of instruction in geology, with field trips to the Grand Canyon and Meteor Crater in Arizona. Borman thought it was a waste of time. "I didn't care about picking up rocks," he later told an interviewer, "I wanted to beat the Soviets to the Moon".


title: Frank Borman

text: When the Chief of the Flight Crew Operations, Mercury Seven astronaut Deke Slayton, drew up a tentative schedule of Project Gemini flights, he assigned Mercury Seven astronaut Alan Shepard command of the first crewed flight, Gemini 3, with Next Nine astronaut Tom Stafford as his co-pilot. Mercury Seven astronaut Gus Grissom would command the backup crew, with Borman as his co-pilot. Under the crew rotation system Slayton devised, the backup crew of one mission would become the prime of the third mission after. Borman would therefore become the co-pilot of Gemini 6, which was planned as a long-duration fourteen-day mission.


title: Frank Borman

text: An Apollo mission to the Moon was expected to take at least a week, so one of the objectives of Project Gemini was to test the ability of the crew and spacecraft components to operate in space for that length of time. When Shepard was grounded in October 1963, Grissom and Borman became the prime crew of Gemini 3. Grissom invited Borman to his house to talk to him about the mission, and after a long discussion, decided that he could not work with Borman. According to Gene Cernan, "the egos of Grissom and Borman were too big to fit into a single spacecraft". Slayton therefore replaced Borman with John Young.


title: Frank Borman

text: Slayton still wanted Borman for the two-week flight, which had now slipped to Gemini 7, so Borman was assigned as backup commander of Gemini 4, with Jim Lovell as his co-pilot. This was officially announced on July 27, 1964, and their assignment to Gemini7 followed on July 1, 1965, with Ed White and Michael Collins as their backups. Borman was one of four members of his group chosen to command their first missions, the others being McDivitt, Neil Armstrong, and Elliot See, although See was killed in a jet crash three months before his mission. Prime and backup crews trained for the mission together, and Borman found the experience as a backup valuable, amounting to a dress rehearsal of their own mission.


title: Frank Borman

text: That Gemini7 would last for fourteen days was known from the beginning, and gave Borman time to prepare. To keep fit, he and Lovell jogged a day, and played handball after work. They visited the McDonnell Aircraft plant in St. Louis, Missouri, where their spacecraft was built. At , it was heavier than any previous Gemini spacecraft. Special procedures were developed for the stowage of consumables and garbage. A lightweight space suit was developed to make the astronauts more comfortable.


title: Frank Borman

text: A major change affecting the mission occurred when the Agena target vehicle for Gemini 6 suffered a catastrophic failure. This mission was intended to practice orbital rendezvous, a requirement of Project Apollo and therefore an objective of Project Gemini. Borman was at the Kennedy Space Center (KSC) to observe the launch of Gemini 6, and heard two McDonnell officials, spacecraft chief Walter Burke and his deputy, John Yardley, discuss the possibility of using Gemini7 as a rendezvous target. Borman rejected the idea of docking the two spacecraft, but otherwise thought the idea had merit.


title: Frank Borman

text: After some discussion about how it could be accomplished, it was approved. The 6555th Aerospace Test Wing dismantled Gemini6 and assembled Gemini7 at Cape Canaveral Air Force Station Launch Complex 19. Gemini7 was launched at 14:30 local time on December 6, 1965. Then the race was on to launch Gemini6 with Wally Schirra and Tom Stafford on board, which was accomplished at 08:37 local time on December 15. Gemini6 completed the rendezvous with Gemini7 at 14:33. The two craft came within of each other. At one point Schirra held up a sign in the window for Borman to read that said: "Beat Army". Schirra, Stafford and Lovell were all United States Naval Academy graduates; Borman was outnumbered.


title: Frank Borman

text: When Schirra and Stafford pulled away and returned to Earth, Borman and Lovell still had three days to go, in a space the size of the front seat of a small car. Borman began hoping that something would go wrong and excuse an early return. Finally, on December 18, it was time to return. The two astronauts were pumped up with the help of the stimulant dexedrine. The re-entry was accomplished flawlessly, and the Gemini7 spacecraft splashed down from the recovery vessel, the aircraft carrier . Borman had never been on an aircraft carrier before, and was awed by its size. Borman was awarded the NASA Exceptional Service Medal for this mission, and was promoted to colonel. At 37, he was the youngest full colonel in the Air Force.


title: Frank Borman

text: In planning for Project Apollo, Slayton designated new crews under the command of the experienced astronauts who commanded the early Gemini missions. On missions with a lunar module, the senior pilot (later known as the command module pilot) would also be an experienced astronaut, as he would have to fly the command module solo. Borman was given the assignment of backup for the second mission, an Earth-orbital mission without a lunar module. He would then command the fourth, a medium Earth orbit mission with a lunar module. He was given Charles Bassett for a senior pilot and Bill Anders as the pilot (later known as the lunar module pilot); Bassett was expected to fly on Gemini 9, but he died in the air crash that also killed See. Borman was then given Stafford as senior pilot and Collins as pilot. Subsequently, Stafford was given his own crew, and Anders was reassigned to Borman's crew. As Collins had spaceflight experience on Gemini 10, he became the senior pilot. The second mission was scrubbed, but Borman's remained unchanged, although now it was to be the third mission, and he had no backup responsibility. The crew selection was officially announced in a NASA press release on December 22, 1966.


title: Frank Borman

text: On January 27, 1967, the crew of the first crewed Apollo mission (Apollo 1then designated AS-204), Gus Grissom, Ed White, and Roger B. Chaffee were killed in a fire aboard their command module. Following this deadly accident, the AS-204 Accident Review Board was charged with investigating the root causes of the fire and recommending corrective measures. Borman was chosen as the only astronaut to serve on the nine-member review board. He inspected the burnt-out command module and verified the positions of the switches and circuit breakers. In April 1967, while serving on the board, Borman was one of five astronauts who testified before the United States House of Representatives and United States Senate committees investigating the Apollo1 fire (the others were Shepard, Schirra, Slayton and McDivitt). Borman faced tough and sometimes hostile questioning. Borman's testimony helped convince Congress that Apollo would be safe to fly again. He told them: "We are trying to tell you that we are confident in our management, and in our engineering and in ourselves. I think the question is really: Are you confident in us?"


title: Frank Borman

text: In the aftermath of the disaster, Joe Shea resigned as manager of the Apollo project. Robert Gilruth, the director of the MSC, offered the position to Borman, who turned it down. The job was given to Gilruth's deputy, George Low; Borman accepted a temporary posting to the North American Aviation plant in Downey, California, where the command modules were made, to oversee the implementation of the recommendations of the AS-204 Accident Review Board. Borman was forced to confront one of the root causes of the disaster: the natural tension between getting the job done on time and building the spacecraft as well as possible.


title: Frank Borman

text: Borman argued with test pilot Scott Crossfield, who was in charge of safety engineering at North American, over the design of an effective emergency oxygen system. Borman refused to accept the design because it did not protect the crew from noxious fumes. Crossfield then opposed the delivery of North American's S-II, the second stage of the Saturn V Moon rocket, which Crossfield deemed unsafe. Borman informed management at North American that he could not work with Crossfield, and Crossfield eventually left the company. A redesigned hatch that allowed the astronauts to exit within seconds instead of minutes added to the weight of the spacecraft. The parachutes had to be redesigned to ensure they could hold the additional weight, and re-testing them cost $250,000. This led to a clash with George Mueller, who thought the cost was excessive.


title: Frank Borman

text: Borman's medium Earth orbit lunar module test mission was now planned as Apollo 9, and tentatively scheduled for early 1969, after a low Earth orbit one commanded by McDivitt in December 1968. The crew assignments were officially announced on November 20, 1967, but in July 1968 Collins suffered a cervical disc herniation that required surgery to repair. He was replaced by Lovell in July 1968, reuniting Borman with his Gemini7 crewmate. When Apollo 8's LM-3 arrived at the KSC in June 1968, more than a hundred significant defects were discovered, leading Gilruth to conclude that there was no prospect of LM-3 being ready to fly in 1968.


title: Frank Borman

text: In August 1968, in response to a report from the CIA that the Soviet Union were considering a lunar fly-by before the end of the year, Low proposed a bold solution to keep the Apollo program on track. Since the next Command/Service Module (CSM) (designated as "CSM-103") would be ready three months before LM-3, a CSM-only mission could be flown in December 1968. Instead of repeating the flight of Apollo 7, it could be sent to the Moon, entering lunar orbit before returning to Earth. This also meant that the medium Earth orbit mission could be dispensed with, keeping to the schedule for a lunar landing in mid-1969. With the change in mission for Apollo 8, Slayton asked McDivitt if he still wanted to fly it. McDivitt turned it down; his crew had spent a great deal of time preparing to test the LM, and that was what he still wanted to do. When Borman was asked the same question, he answered "yes" without any hesitation. Slayton then decided to swap the crews and spacecraft of the Apollo8 and9 missions.


title: Frank Borman

text: Apollo8 was launched at 12:51:00 UTC (07:51:00 Eastern Standard Time) on December 21, 1968. On the second day Borman awoke feeling ill. He vomited twice and had a bout of diarrhea; this left the spacecraft full of small globules of vomit and feces, which the crew cleaned up as best they could. Borman did not want anyone to know about his medical problems, but Lovell and Anders wanted to inform Mission Control. The Apollo8 crew and Mission Control medical personnel concluded that there was little to worry about and that Borman's illness was either a 24-hour flu, as Borman thought, or an adverse reaction to a sleeping pill. Researchers now believe that he was suffering from space adaptation syndrome, which affects about a third of astronauts during their first day in space as their vestibular system adapts to weightlessness. Space adaptation syndrome had not occurred on Mercury and Gemini missions because those astronauts could not move freely in the small cabins of those spacecraft. The increased cabin space in the Apollo command module afforded astronauts greater freedom of movement, contributing to symptoms of space sickness.


title: Frank Borman

text: On December 24, Apollo8 went into lunar orbit. The crew made ten orbits of the Moon in twenty hours before returning to Earth. The mission is known for the "Earthrise" photograph taken by Bill Anders of the Earth rising above the lunar horizon as the command module orbited the Moon, and for the televised reading from Genesis in lunar orbit, released for worldwide broadcast. About six weeks before the launch, NASA's deputy director for public affairs, Julian Scheer, had told Borman that a television broadcast was scheduled for this time, and suggested that they find something appropriate to say. Borman had consulted with Simon Bourgin, who worked at the United States Information Agency, and had accompanied Borman and Lovell on a goodwill tour of the Far East after the Gemini7 mission. Bourgin, in turn, consulted Joe Laitin, a former United Press International reporter, who suggested that the Apollo8 crew read from the Book of Genesis. The text was transcribed onto fireproof paper for the broadcast. "One of the things that was truly historic", Borman later joked, "was that we got that good Catholic Bill Anders to read from the King James Version of the bible."


title: Frank Borman

text: The Apollo8 spacecraft splashed down in darkness at 10:51:42 UTC (05:51:42 EST) on Friday, December 27. Borman had argued for this; a daylight landing would have required orbiting the Moon at least twelve times, and Borman did not think this was necessary. When the spacecraft hit the water, Borman did not flick the switch to release the parachutes quickly enough. They dragged the spacecraft over and left it upside down. In this position, the flashing light beacon could not be seen by the recovery helicopters. Borman inflated the bags in the nose of the spacecraft, which then righted itself. Mission ground rules required a daylight recovery, so the crew had to wait 45 minutes until local sunrise before the frogmen could open the hatches. Borman became seasick and threw up, and was glad when he could be taken on board the recovery ship, the aircraft carrier .


title: Frank Borman

text: Apollo8 came at the end of 1968, a year that had seen much upheaval in the United States and most of the world. They were the first human beings to orbit another celestial body, having survived a mission that even the crew themselves had rated as having only a fifty-fifty chance of fully succeeding. The effect of Apollo8 was summed up in a telegram from a stranger, received by Borman after the mission, that stated simply, "Thank you Apollo 8. You saved 1968."


title: Frank Borman

text: The crew were accorded ticker tape parades in New York, Chicago and Washington, D.C., where they were awarded the NASA Distinguished Service Medal, which was presented by President Lyndon B. Johnson. Borman was also awarded the Air Force Distinguished Service Medal. Afterward, Borman was sent on a goodwill tour of Europe, with a secondary objective of finding out more about the space programs of other NATO countries. He was accompanied by Bourgin and Nicholas Ruwe, the assistant chief of protocol at the State Department. Borman met with Queen Elizabeth II, Prince Philip and a teenage Princess Anne at Buckingham Palace in the UK, with President Charles de Gaulle in France, Pope Paul VI in Rome, and King Baudouin and Queen Fabiola of Belgium.


title: Frank Borman

text: Space journalist Andrew Chaikin claims that, following the death of Gus Grissom, Borman became Slayton's choice to command the first Moon landing attempt. In the fall of 1968, Slayton offered command of the first landing to Borman, who turned it down. Long before Apollo8 lifted off, Borman had decided that it would be his last flight, and that he would retire in 1970. After twenty years' service in the Air Force, he would qualify for a pension. Borman told an interviewer in 1999 that "my reason for joining NASA was to participate in the Apollo Program, the lunar program, and hopefully beat the Russians. I never looked at it for any individual goals. I never wanted to be the first person on the Moon and frankly, as far as I was concerned, when Apollo 11 was over the mission was over. The rest was frosting on the cake."


title: Frank Borman

text: For the Apollo11 Moon landing mission in July 1969, Borman was assigned as NASA liaison to President Richard Nixon at the White House. He viewed the launch from the President's office. Nixon initially had prepared a long speech to read to the astronauts on the Moon during a phone call, but Borman persuaded him to keep his words brief and non-partisan. He also convinced the President to omit the playing of the "Star Spangled Banner", which would have required the astronauts to waste two and a half minutes of their time on the surface standing still. He accompanied the President in Marine One, when it flew to the recovery ship, the aircraft carrier to meet the crew of Apollo11 on their return.


title: Frank Borman

text: In June 1970, Borman retired from NASA and the U.S. Air Force as a colonel. For his services as an astronaut, the Air Force awarded him the Distinguished Flying Cross and the Legion of Merit. In August, he undertook another special presidential mission, a worldwide tour to seek support for the release of American prisoners of war held by North Vietnam. At the conclusion of his 25-day mission to 25 countries, Borman briefed Nixon on September 1 at the Western White House in San Clemente, California. While the mission was not an abject failure, his fame failed to compensate for his lack of political experience and gravitas. On September 22, he appeared before an unusual joint meeting of Congress conducted at the request of the National League of Families of American Prisoners and Missing in Southeast Asia in his capacity as presidential envoy. He noted that the POWs were being treated poorly, and urged Congress "not to forsake your countrymen who have given so much for you."


title: Frank Borman

text: Borman performed one more assignment for the military. In 1976, there was a major cheating scandal at West Point. Faculty noticed remarkably similar answers to an examination paper for Electrical Engineering 304, a required course, that had been given to over 800 cadets to complete on their own. Cheating was a violation of the Cadet Honor Code, and cheaters were subject to expulsion. Cadets were tried by 12-member honor boards of cadets that functioned as grand juries; but the system was prone to abuse, and those cleared on appeal to the five‐member appeal boards of officers that functioned as courts were often punished with "silence", a form of shunning. Borman was appointed to head a special commission to investigate and report to the Secretary of the Army. Eventually, 92 cadets were readmitted, and graduated with the Class of 1978; more than 60 others declined the offer of amnesty, and chose to complete their education elsewhere.


title: Frank Borman

text: Borman's son Frederick, of the West Point Class of 1974, was accused of taking a bribe. It was alleged that while a member of a cadet honor code board he had accepted a $1,200 payment to fix a case involving two cadets accused of cheating. Frederick was cleared of all charges after taking a polygraph test. Borman's younger son, Edwin, of the West Point Class of 1975, was also accused of improprieties, but there was no evidence to support the allegations, and they were dismissed.


title: Frank Borman

text: In early 1969, Borman became a special advisor to Eastern Air Lines. The following year he completed the six-week Harvard Business School's Advanced Management Program. He joined Eastern Air Lines on July 1, 1970, and moved to Miami. In December he became its senior vice president for operations. On the evening of December 29, 1972, Borman received a phone call informing him that Eastern Air Lines Flight 401 had disappeared off the radar near Florida's Everglades. He took a helicopter, which was able to land in the darkness from the crash site, and waded waist-deep through the murky swamp, helping rescue crash victims and load survivors into rescue helicopters.


title: Frank Borman

text: The accident put the spotlight on the airline's Lockheed L-1011 TriStar aircraft, which suffered from maintenance problems, particularly with the turbine blades of the Rolls-Royce RB211 engine. This made it difficult to fly them at a profit. The airline also had 25 Boeing 727-100QC aircraft capable of being quickly changed from passenger to cargo aircraft. These weighed more than the airline's standard 727-100s, and therefore consumed more fuel, which made them only marginally profitable when fuel prices were low, but jet fuel prices quadrupled in the 1970s. Eastern also spent $200,000 on a down payment for two Concordes, although it had no suitable routes to fly them on.


title: Frank Borman

text: Borman was promoted to Executive Vice President-General Operations Manager and was elected to Eastern's board of directors in July 1974. In May 1975, Borman was elected president and chief operating officer by the board. He was named chief executive officer of Eastern in December 1975, and became chairman of the board in December 1976. Borman disliked aspects of American corporate culture, such as plush offices, luxury Cadillac and Mercedes company cars and a Lockheed JetStar corporate jet for executives, while firing or furloughing employees. After Borman became Eastern's CEO, he saved the company $9 million annually in salaries by firing 81 middle managers and 31 vice presidents. He drove to work in a second-hand Chevrolet Camaro with an engine he rebuilt himself. He sold the Jetstar, and, as at North American, banned drinking on company time, which he considered also included lunchtime. The end of the three-martini lunch came as a shock to many executives.


title: Frank Borman

text: Eastern had not turned a profit since 1959. To reduce costs, Borman convinced employees to accept a wage freeze in 1976, with an eight percent raise in 1977, and then a five-year Variable Earnings Program (VEP). Under the VEP, employees contributed 3.5 percent of their annual salaries to a special profit insurance fund. If Eastern did not achieve a two percent return on each revenue dollar, the fund was used to make up the difference. If the company did earn more than two percent, the excess money was returned to the employees, who could earn back up to twice their contributions. To get his changes through, Borman visited the airline's facilities in 28 states to bring his proposals to his employees.


title: Frank Borman

text: With the VEP in hand, Borman was able to refinance the debt on the company's 254 aircraft. Profits jumped to a record $67.3 million in 1978. During this time, the employees received double their VER payments. Borman ordered $1.4 billion worth of new, more fuel-efficient aircraft, and the company's debt ballooned to $2.3 billion. But 1979 was the last profitable year until 1985. In the intervening five years, Eastern ran at a loss, accumulating $380 million in losses. The company's debt-to-equity ratio stood at 8:1, and servicing the debt required $235 million annually in interest payments, representing about cents in every dollar earned.


title: Frank Borman

text: The cause of the decline in profitability was only partly due to the company's debt; there was also airline deregulation in 1978, which caused the number of airlines in the United States to increase from 30 to nearly 100. Some of the newcomers offered unprofitable and unsustainable low prices to gain market share. In just the first three-quarters of 1984, Eastern lost $128 million. Borman negotiated an agreement with the Air Line Pilots Association (ALPA) for a 22 percent pay cut, while the International Association of Machinists (IAM) and the Transport Workers Union (TWU) (representing the flight attendants) accepted an 18 percent cut. Employees were nominally compensated with grants of company stock, but its value declined from $60 a share in 1966 to $6 a share in 1983.


title: Frank Borman

text: Eastern posted a profit of $6.3 million on gross revenues of $4 billion in 1984, but this was not enough to satisfy the creditors, who demanded a two percent profit. Borman laid off 1,000 flight attendants and cut the pay of 6,000 more by over 20 percent. He also slashed the pay of executives and middle managers by 20 to 25 percent. In the first quarter of 1985, earnings were up to $24.3 million, 35 cents a share, after setting aside $28.9 million for the employees. It was the third consecutive profitable quarter in a row. Borman attempted to negotiate further cuts with the unions, threatening bankruptcy. The ALPA and TWU accepted, but the IAM did not. Over ten years, the three unions had given up $836 million in wages and benefits, and the company had little to show for it. Charlie Bryan, the head of the IAM, said that the union would accept the deal only if Borman resigned. In response, Eastern's board decided to sell the airline to Texas Air Corporation, headed by Frank Lorenzo. Borman resigned from Eastern in June 1986. It was a personal defeat, but hardly a personal financial disaster; he received a severance payment of $900,000, and drew a consultant's fee of $150,000 a year from it until 1991.


title: Frank Borman

text: Borman served on the South African Board of Inquiry into the 1986 aircraft crash that killed Mozambican president Samora Machel.


title: Frank Borman

text: Borman and Susan left Miami, and moved to Las Cruces, New Mexico. For a time, he was the majority owner of a Las Cruces Ford dealership founded by his son, Fred. He was a member of the boards of directors of Home Depot, National Geographic, Outboard Marine Corporation, Automotive Financial Group, Thermo Instrument Systems and American Superconductor. He was CEO of Patlex Corporation, a small company that held patents in lasers, from July 1988 to August 1996. That year, he published an autobiography, "Countdown", co-written with Robert J. Serling.


title: Frank Borman

text: In 1998, Borman purchased a cattle ranch in the Bighorn Mountains of southern Montana, running 4,000 head of cattle on . In addition to tending cattle, Borman continued his hobbies in rebuilding and modeling aircraft. Notably, he owned and painstakingly rebuilt a very rare World War II single-engine fighter, the Bell P-63 Kingcobra. It won the prestigious Grand Champion Warbird award when Borman exhibited it at Oshkosh in 1998. He also personally flew it in airshows. He is a member of the Society of Antique Modelers (SAM). Since 1998 he has lived in Billings, Montana. His wife Susan suffered from Alzheimer's disease, and he spent much of his time caring for her. Eventually she was placed in a nursing home, where he visited her each day, until her death on September 7, 2021.


title: Frank Borman

text: Following John Glenn's death in December 2016, Borman became the oldest living American astronaut. He is eleven days older than his Apollo8 crewmate, Jim Lovell. Both celebrated their 90th birthdays in March 2018. Borman gave the commencement address to the University of Arizona's 2008 graduating class, and was reunited with Lovell and Anders for celebrations of the 50th anniversary of Apollo8 in December 2018 at the Museum of Science and Industry in Chicago, where the spacecraft in which they orbited the Moon is on display. "I have never said it before publicly", declared Borman, "but these two talented guys, I'm just proud that I was able to fly with them. It was a tough job done in four months, and we did a good job."


title: Frank Borman

text: Borman, along with his Gemini7 crewmate Lovell and the Gemini6 crew, received the 1965 Harmon Trophy. He and Lovell were awarded the trophy a second time for the Apollo8 mission in 1968. The Apollo8 crew was also awarded the Robert J. Collier Trophy for "achievement in astronautics". Former deputy administrator of NASA and then Secretary of the Air Force Robert Seamans Jr. awarded them the General Thomas D. White USAF Space Trophy at the National Geographic Society, and Vice President Spiro Agnew presented them with the society's Hubbard Medal. "Time" magazine chose the crew of Apollo8 as its Men of the Year for 1968, recognizing them as the people who most influenced events in the year, and they were featured on the January 3, 1969, cover. Jim Lovell accepted the Dr. Robert H. Goddard Memorial Trophy for space achievement from President Richard Nixon on behalf of the Apollo8 crew. On October 1, 1978, Borman was awarded the Congressional Space Medal of Honor for his command of Apollo 8.


title: Frank Borman

text: Borman, who built model airplanes throughout much of his life, was awarded the Academy of Model Aeronautics Distinguished Service Award in 1968. Borman, along with other recipients such as baseball player Mickey Mantle and actress Polly Bergen, was awarded the Golden Plate Award of the American Academy of Achievement in 1969. Borman received the honor for the science and exploration category. He was also awarded the Society of Experimental Test Pilots James H. Doolittle Award in 1976, the Tony Jannus Award in 1986, the Airport Operators Council International Downes Award in 1990, and the NASA Ambassador of Exploration Award in 2012. He has been awarded honorary doctorates from Whittier College, the University of Arizona, South Dakota School of Mines, Illinois Wesleyan University, the University of Pittsburgh, Indiana University, Arizona State University, Clarkson University, Hope College, and the Air University.


title: Frank Borman

text: Borman was one of ten Gemini astronauts inducted into the International Space Hall of Fame in 1982. He and Senator Barry Goldwater were two of four individuals inducted into the National Aviation Hall of Fame in 1982. In 1990, Borman was selected for the Arizona Aviation Hall of Fame's inaugural class. He was among the second class that was inducted into the U.S. Astronaut Hall of Fame in 1993. He was also inducted into the International Air & Space Hall of Fame in 1990 and the DeMolay International Hall of Fame.


title: Frank Borman

text: In "From the Earth to the Moon", a 1998 HBO miniseries, Borman was played by David Andrews. He was interviewed in the 2008 Discovery Channel documentary "", and appeared in the 2005 documentary "Race to the Moon", which was shown as part of the PBS "American Experience" series. The film centered on the events that led up to the Apollo 8 mission. On November 13, 2008, Borman, Lovell and Anders appeared on the NASA TV channel to discuss Apollo 8 on the 40th anniversary of the mission. Borman was featured on Episode 655 of the radio program "This American Life" titled "The Not-So-Great Unknown", airing on August 24, 2018; his interview with David Kestenbaum in Act One of the episode titled "So Over the Moon" centered on his unconventional outlook towards space travel.


title: Nico Greetham

text: Nico Greetham (born March 3, 1995) is an American actor and dancer. He played Calvin Maxwell in the television series "Power Rangers Ninja Steel" and as Nick in the musical film "The Prom".


title: Nico Greetham

text: Greetham is a native of Woodbridge, Virginia, and attended Osbourn Park High School. His parents are both doctors. His father is of Scottish descent and his mother is of Colombian descent. He has two sisters.


title: Nico Greetham

text: Greetham was a gymnast as a child, but sustained an injury at age eight that forced him to stop practicing the sport. After this, he began dancing, and aspired to compete on "So You Think You Can Dance". In 2013, he successfully auditioned to appear the show's tenth season, in which he was a finalist. He moved to Los Angeles, and subsequently began acting.


title: Chelmsford

text: Chelmsford () is a city in the City of Chelmsford district in the county of Essex, England. It is the county town of Essex and one of three cities in the county, along with Southend-on-Sea and Colchester. It is located north-east of London at Charing Cross and south-west of Colchester. The population of the urban area was 111,511 in the 2011 Census, while the wider district has 168,310.


title: Chelmsford

text: The main conurbation of Chelmsford incorporates all or part of the former parishes of Broomfield, Newland Spring, Great Leighs, The Walthams, Great Baddow, Little Baddow, Galleywood, Howe Green, Margaretting, Pleshey, Stock, Roxwell, Danbury, Bicknacre, Writtle, Moulsham, Rettendon, The Hanningfields, The Chignals, Widford and Springfield, including Springfield Barnes, now known as Chelmer Village.


title: Chelmsford

text: The communities of Chelmsford, Massachusetts, Chelmsford, Ontario and Chelmsford, New Brunswick are named after the city.


title: Chelmsford

text: Chelmsford's population consists of a large number of City and Docklands commuters, attracted by the 30–35-minute railway journey into Central London via the Great Eastern Main Line.


title: Chelmsford

text: Before 1199, there were settlements nearby from ancient times. The remains of a Neolithic and a late Bronze Age settlement have been found in the Springfield suburb, and the town was occupied by the Romans. A Roman fort was built in AD 60, and a civilian town grew up around it. The town was given the name of Caesaromagus ("Caesar's field" or "Caesar's marketplace"), although the reason for it being given the great honour of bearing the Imperial prefix is now unclear – possibly as a failed 'planned town' provincial capital to replace Londinium or Camulodunum. The remains of a "mansio", a combination post office, civic centre and hotel, lie beneath the streets of modern Moulsham, and the ruins of an octagonal temple are located beneath the Odeon roundabout. The town disappeared for a while after the Romans left Britain.


title: Chelmsford

text: An Anglo-Saxon burial was discovered at Broomfield to the north of Chelmsford in the late 19th century and the finds are now in the British Museum. The road 'Saxon Way' now marks the site.


title: Chelmsford

text: The city's name is derived from "Ceolmaer's ford" which was close to the site of the present High Street stone bridge. In the Domesday Book of 1086, the town was called "Celmeresfort" and by 1189 it had changed to "Chelmsford". Its position on the Londinium – Camulodonum Roman road (the modern A12) ensured the early prosperity of Chelmsford.


title: Chelmsford

text: On 7 September 1199, following the commissioning of a bridge over the River Can by Maurice, Bishop of London, King John granted to William of Sainte-Mère-Eglise a royal charter for Chelmsford to hold a market, marking the origin of the modern town. An under-cover market, operating Tuesday to Saturday, is still an important part of the city centre over 800 years later.


title: Chelmsford

text: The town became the seat of the local assize during the early 13th century (though assizes were also held at Brentwood) and by 1218 it was recognised as the county town of Essex, a position it has retained to the present day.


title: Chelmsford

text: King Robert I of Scotland, better known as Robert the Bruce (1274–1309), had close ties with the nearby village of Writtle and there is some evidence to suggest he was born at Montpeliers Farm in the village, but the story is disputed and possibly conflated with his father, Robert de Brus, 6th Lord of Annandale.


title: Chelmsford

text: Chelmsford was significantly involved in the Peasants' Revolt of 1381, and King Richard II moved on to the town after quelling the rebellion in London. 'The Sleepers and The Shadows', written by Hilda Grieve in 1988 using original sources, states: "For nearly a week, from Monday 1st July to Saturday 6th July [1381], Chelmsford became the seat of government ... The king probably lodged at his nearby manor house at Writtle. He was attended by his council, headed by the temporary Chancellor ... the new chief justice ... the royal chancery ... Their formidable task in Chelmsford was to draft, engross, date, seal and despatch by messengers riding to the farthest corners of the realm, the daily batches of commissions, mandates, letters, orders and proclamations issued by the government not only to speed the process of pacification of the kingdom, but to conduct much ordinary day-to-day business of the Crown and Government." Richard II famously revoked the charters which he had made in concession to the peasants on 2 July 1381, while in Chelmsford. It could be said that given this movement of government power, Chelmsford for a few days at least became the capital of England. Many of the ringleaders of the revolt were executed on the gallows at what is now Primrose Hill.


title: Chelmsford

text: King Henry VIII purchased the Boleyn estate in 1516, and built Beaulieu Palace on the current site of New Hall School. This later became the residence of his then mistress, and later wife Anne. Soon after it became the residence of Henry's daughter, by his first marriage, Mary I.


title: Chelmsford

text: In the 17th century many of the victims of Matthew Hopkins (the self-styled "Witchfinder General") spent their last days imprisoned in Chelmsford, before being tried at the Assizes and hanged for witchcraft.


title: Chelmsford

text: In 1835, when visiting Essex and Suffolk to cover local elections, Charles Dickens visited Chelmsford. He was apparently so upset that he could not find a newspaper on a Sunday that he wrote in a letter to a friend that Chelmsford was "the dullest and most stupid place on earth".


title: Chelmsford

text: Station 2MT led to the creation of its sister station in London "2LO", which subsequently led to the creation of the BBC.


title: Chelmsford

text: During World War II Chelmsford, an important centre of light engineering war production, was attacked from the air on several occasions, both by aircraft of the Luftwaffe and by missile. The worst single loss of life took place on Tuesday 19 December 1944, when the 367th Vergeltungswaffe 2 or V2 rocket to hit England fell on Henry Road, a residential street near the Hoffmans ball bearing factory and the Marconi Wireless Telegraph Company factory in New Street. Both factories were key to the war effort. Thirty-nine people were killed and 138 injured, 47 seriously. Several dwellings in Henry Road were completely destroyed, and many badly damaged in nearby streets. A monument to the dead is located in the city cemetery on Writtle Road.


title: Chelmsford

text: On 14 May 1943 Luftwaffe bombing raids hit Chelmsford leaving more than 50 people dead and leaving nearly 1,000 homeless. The bombs hit mainly the town centre, Springfield, and Moulsham.


title: Chelmsford

text: The GHQ Line part of the British hardened field defences of World War II runs directly through Chelmsford with many pillboxes still in existence to the north and south of the city.


title: Chelmsford

text: Hylands Park, the site of the former annual V Festival, hosted a prisoner of war camp, and from 1944 until it was disbanded in 1945, was the headquarters of the Special Air Service (SAS).


title: Chelmsford

text: Since the 1980s defence-related industries in the city have declined, most notably the Marconi Company with all of its factories either being closed or sold. The site on West Hanningfield Road was sold to BAE Systems; the Waterhouse Lane site sold to E2V and the New Street site is undergoing major redevelopment for residential/mixed use.


title: Chelmsford

text: The one-time largest employer in Chelmsford, RHP (the former Hoffman ball bearing manufacturer), closed its New Street/Rectory Lane site in 1989. Some of the factory was converted into luxury apartments and a health club although most of the site was demolished to make way for the Rivermead Campus of the Anglia Ruskin University.


title: Chelmsford

text: The city's location close to London and at the centre of Essex has helped it grow in importance as a financial, administrative and distribution centre.


title: Chelmsford

text: The Channels Development, Beaulieu Park, The Village and Chancellor Park are some of the most recent large-scale housing developments built in the city. The local plan targets an additional 18,000 new homes by 2036, in developments largely to the north of the city.


title: Chelmsford

text: In 2007, the Channel 4 programme "Location, Location, Location" voted Chelmsford the 8th-best place to live in the UK.


title: Chelmsford

text: The letters patent officially granting city status to the City of Chelmsford were received on 6 June 2012. to mark the Diamond Jubilee of Elizabeth II.


title: Chelmsford

text: The announcement to make Chelmsford a city had been made on 14 March 2012 by the Lord President of the Privy Council and Deputy Prime Minister, Nick Clegg.


title: Chelmsford

text: Chelmsford is at the geographic and political centre of Essex and has been the county town since 1215. The headquarters of Essex County Council is at County Hall, Duke Street and the headquarters of Chelmsford City Council at the Civic Centre, Duke Street. The civic centre was designed by Cordingley & McIntyre as a public library and completed in April 1935.


title: Chelmsford

text: The headquarters of Essex Police is located in the Springfield area of the city at Kingston Crescent.


title: Chelmsford

text: Chelmsford formed part of the ancient Chelmsford hundred of Essex. It was incorporated as a municipal borough in 1888, under the provisions of the Municipal Corporations Act 1882. In 1934 the borough was enlarged by gaining from Chelmsford Rural District, including parts of the parishes of Broomfield, Springfield, Widford and Writtle. The municipal borough and civil parish. was abolished on 1 April 1974 and its former area was combined with most of the remainder of the rural district to form the larger Borough of Chelmsford which was granted city status by Royal Charter in 2012.


title: Chelmsford

text: For the Chelmsford constituency in the House of Commons, the member of Parliament is Vicky Ford. In the 2019 general election, Ford gained 31,934 votes (55.9%), winning the seat with a majority over Marie Goldman, the Liberal Democrat candidate, who gained 14,313 votes (25.1%).


title: Chelmsford

text: Originally an agricultural and market town, Chelmsford has been an important centre for industry since the 19th century. Following the opening of the Chelmer and Blackwater Navigation in 1797, cheaper transportation and raw materials made milling and malting the main industries until the 1850s, when increasing prosperity created a local market for agricultural machinery.


title: Chelmsford

text: Foundries and engineering works followed including Fell Christy at his Factory (In later years known as Christy Norris Ltd) on the corner of Kings Road and Broomfield Road opened 1858, closed 1985, Coleman and Moreton, Thomas Clarkson ("Steam" Omnibus manufacturer and Founder of the Eastern National Bus Company) and Eddington and Stevenson (makers of traction engines). The Company Christy Norris still survives, trading as Christy Turner Ltd based in Ipswich. A residential street close to the old Factory was named "Fell Christy" in his honour.


title: Chelmsford

text: As well as the headquarters of Essex Police, Essex County and Chelmsford City Councils, the modern city is home to a range of national and international companies including M&G Group, Teledyne e2v and ebm-papst. The continuing importance of Chelmsford as an employment centre is demonstrated by the fact that the number of "in" commuters (mostly from other parts of Essex) almost exactly balances the number of workers commuting into London.


title: Chelmsford

text: Chelmsford is largely a commercial city which employs around 80,000 people. There are three medium-sized shopping centres, Bond Street, High Chelmer and The Meadows. Chelmsford has six retail parks, Riverside, Chelmer Village, Clocktower Retail Park, The Army & Navy, Moulsham Lodge Retail Park and the smaller Homelands Retail Park housing a Flagship B&Q Store, Wyvale Garden Centre (part of the Garden centre Group) and Pets Corner. The High Street is full of independent and chain stores. As well as the leading High Street names, there is a wide variety of specialist retailers, particularly in Baddow Road and Moulsham Street at the end of the pedestrianised High Street. On 29 September 2016 a new retail development opened anchored by John Lewis. On 6 January 2005, Chelmsford was granted Fairtrade Town status.


title: Chelmsford

text: Sizeable businesses are now based in the Chelmsford Business Park at Boreham housing companies such as the Anderson Group and Global Marine Systems. Chelmsford is a centre for national electricity suppliers operating within the industrial and commercial sectors, with both EnDCo and F&S Energy headquartered within the city. The city has a low unemployment rate (1.6% in 2002) and a well-educated workforce, with 9% holding a degree or above (in 2002; British average: 7.1%).


title: Chelmsford

text: Chelmsford has a vibrant nightlife scene with many pubs, late night bars and restaurant establishments in the city centre area. Its central Essex location and good public transport links make the city ideal for revellers, commuters and tourists to visit from surrounding areas.


title: Chelmsford

text: In 1899, Guglielmo Marconi opened the world's first "wireless" factory under the name 'The Marconi Wireless Telegraph & Signal Company' in Hall Street, employing around 50 people. The company was later called the Marconi Wireless Telegraph Company Ltd. For this reason Chelmsford is credited as the "birthplace of radio", and this phrase can be seen on administrative signs on major roads entering the city, although this statement is disputed.


title: Chelmsford

text: Outgrowing its Hall Street premises, Marconi moved to the purpose-built New Street Works in June 1912. On 15 June 1920 the factory hosted the first official publicised sound broadcast in the United Kingdom, featuring Dame Nellie Melba and using two radio broadcasting masts.


title: Chelmsford

text: In 1922, the world's first regular wireless broadcasts for entertainment began from the Marconi laboratories at Writtle near Chelmsford – Call sign '2MT' in what was little more than a wooden hut.


title: Chelmsford

text: In 1999, Marconi's defence division, including the Chelmsford facilities, was purchased by British Aerospace to form BAE Systems. Two sites remain under BAE control; the Great Baddow site which is now BAE's Advanced Technology Centre and its Integrated Systems Technologies business at Glebe Road.


title: Chelmsford

text: The military and secure communications division of Marconi was merged into Selex Communications based at the New Street factory. They vacated the site in April 2008 with the remaining operations moved to nearby Basildon, bringing to an end more than 100 years of the Marconi name in Chelmsford.


title: Chelmsford

text: The New Street factory was scheduled to be redeveloped starting in 2010, but this fell through when site owners Ashwell Property Group entered administration in December 2009. The factory remained empty, derelict and vandalised for several years, to the dismay of Marconi Veterans and Chelmsfordians. The site was sold for redevelopment to Bellway Homes in the summer of 2012 with demolition of the majority of the site including the iconic Marconi House and Building 720 in April/May 2013. Only the Grade II listed water tower, The 1912 front building façade, the New Street cottages, and the power house will remain.


title: Chelmsford

text: Chelmsford became home to the United Kingdom's first electrical engineering works established by Rookes Evelyn Bell Crompton. Crompton was a leading authority on electrical engineering, and pioneered electric street lighting and electric traction motors within the United Kingdom. He installed electric street lights in the town centre to celebrate the incorporation of the Borough of Chelmsford in 1888. Although this made Chelmsford one of the earliest towns to receive electric street lighting, the Council later removed it because gas from the Council owned gasworks was cheaper. Crompton supplied the traction motors for the first electric trains on Southend Pier. The company manufactured electrical switchgear, alternators and generators for many power stations in the UK and worldwide.


title: Chelmsford

text: Crompton set up his original factory known as the 'Arc Works' in Queen Street in 1878. After a fire there in 1895, he built a huge new electrical engineering factory also called the 'Arc Works' in Writtle Road. Crompton and Co. became Crompton Parkinson in 1927 when Colonel Crompton partnered with fellow electrical engineer Frank Parkinson. During World War II, the factory was frequently targeted by the Luftwaffe. In 1969 a takeover by Hawker Siddeley saw Crompton Parkinson Ltd downsized and operations moved elsewhere. The Marconi Company took over the site which became the base for the newly formed Marconi Radar Systems.


title: Chelmsford

text: After years of decline, the Marconi factory closed in 1992 and the site was demolished a few years later apart from the frontage on Writtle Road. 'The Village' housing development now occupies the site with road names such as "Rookes" Crescent, "Evelyn" Place, "Crompton" Street and "Parkinson" Drive as tributes to the former occupant.


title: Chelmsford

text: Hoffmann Ball bearings was a major employer in Chelmsford in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. They produced ball bearings which were used for early transatlantic flight.


title: Chelmsford

text: The firm became Ransome Hoffmann and Pollard (R.H.P.) after Hoffman's amalgamation with Ransome & Marles and Pollard Ball and Roller Bearing Company in 1969.


title: Chelmsford

text: The R.H.P. brand, intellectual property rights and company assets were absorbed into the Japanese NSK Ltd. bearing company in early 1990 trading as NSK-RHP Ltd. at its UK base in Newark on Trent with the historic R.H.P. name finally disappearing in 2001.


title: Chelmsford

text: Most of the former Hoffman New Street factory was demolished during the summer of 1990 and the site is now occupied by the sprawling Rivermead Campus of the Anglia Ruskin University.


title: Chelmsford

text: The only connection to the company name in Chelmsford today is the RHP Bowls club located on part of the old Hoffmans Social Club site at Canterbury Way and Hoffmans Way at the corner of the old factory site at New Street and Rectory Lane.


title: Chelmsford

text: The Waterhouse Lane–based company began in the early 1940s as a part of the Marconi group, manufacturing magnetrons for defence radar systems. The company was first registered as a separate company in Chelmsford, Essex in 1947 under Serge Aisenstein. Its initial name was the Phoenix Dynamo Co Ltd, though it immediately changed its name to English Electric Valve Company Ltd.


title: Chelmsford

text: In 1959 Bob Coulson established Traveling-wave tube and Microwave tube sections and they were producing ceramic hydrogen thyratrons as well. By this time EEV was the largest hi-tech manufacturing company in the UK. A year later they won an EMMY award for outstanding contribution to Electronics Technology in developing the 4½" orthicon tube.


title: Chelmsford

text: In 1961 they acquired Associated Electrical Industries Valve business based in Lincoln. Sir Charles Oatley was a director of the company from 1966 to 1985. In 1962, EEV opened its first office in America in Buffalo, NY. In the 1970s EEV collaborated with QinetiQ in the development of the pyroelectric vidicon, the first thermal imaging detector. The company has received 13 Queen's Awards for Technology in its history, most recently in 2006 for low light imaging devices and in 2004 for thyratrons for cancer radiotherapy treatment. In 1972, they opened an office in Paris, France and in 1977 they opened another in New York; this time in Elmsford.


title: Chelmsford

text: Keith Attwood, e2v's CEO joined in 1999, as MD of EEV, after a short period as Marconi Applied technologies, the company was renamed to e2v technologies in 2002 as part of a management buy out supported by 3i following the collapse of the Marconi group. Following further growth under 3i, in 2004 the company floated on the London Stock Exchange.


title: Chelmsford

text: In 2017, e2v was acquired by US company Teledyne Technologies and changed its name to Teledyne e2v, 70 years after its registration as a Chelmsford-based company. As of 2022, Teledyne e2v continues its operations at the Waterhouse Lane site.


title: Chelmsford

text: The Britvic soft drink company began life as the British Vitamin Company in 1948. The origins of the company can be traced back to a chemist's shop in Tindal Street where flavoured waters were on sale as early as the mid-19th century.


title: Chelmsford

text: The company was acquired by Showerings of Shepton Mallet, and subsequently a division of Allied Breweries from 1968, The British Vitamin Company changed its name to Britvic in 1971.


title: Chelmsford

text: In 1986 it merged with "Canada Dry Rawlings" and acquired the R. White's Lemonade brand. It acquired Tango from Beechams in 1987 and since that year it has owned the UK franchise for Pepsi and 7 Up. In 1995 it bought Robinson's from Reckitt & Colman.


title: Chelmsford

text: In December 2005 the Company underwent an initial public offering (IPO) allowing its main shareholders (InterContinental Hotels Group, Whitbread, Pernod Ricard) to realise their investments.


title: Chelmsford

text: In May 2007 the company went on to buy the soft drinks and distribution businesses of Ireland's Cantrell & Cochrane (C&C) for £169.5m.


title: Chelmsford

text: On 14 November 2012 the Company agreed to merge with Scotland's A.G. Barr, producer of Scottish soft drinks Irn-Bru, Tizer and D'n'B, to create one of Europe's largest soft drinks companies. However the merger was put into serious doubt after the Office of Fair Trading referred the merger to the Competition Commission.