Soaring Biography of Carl D. Herold

Carl D. Herold is a recently retired Aerospace Systems Engineering Scientist.  He grew up in rural Strongesville, Ohio outside of Cleveland within hearing distance watching the National Air Races in 1936. He was graduated from Case School of Applied Science in 1955, with a BS EE in Non-Linear Control Systems and continued studying for advanced degrees until his fiftieth birthday.  His first engineering position was at the  North American Aviation, Columbus, Ohio Division as a Flight Control Design Engineer, working in the preliminary design of the Vigilante flight control and bomb navigation systems, and upgrades to the FJ-3, FJ-4, F86E, F-100C, AJ-1 Savage, F-108, and T-28C flight and fire control control systems.  

During his private 1956 SEL examination at Columbus Ohio, he met his first glider, a Schweizer 1-19 on winch tow while in the pattern, this was the beginning. Sailboat racing began to take a backseat after this.  After moving his family to Buffalo, New York in 1957, 16 year old John Seymour gave Carl his first glider ride in a TG-3 at Batavia, New York. Instructor, Ed Seymour soloed Carl in 1958 to fly the Rochester Soaring Club gliders at Batavia (in the summer)and Elmira, New York (in the winter).  In 1962 he made the move to the San Francisco Bay area and immediately started flying at Sky Sailing airport in Fremont California.  Carl’s three sons and daughter all grew up around soaring, model flying, and crewing.  They still have maintained life long friendships with friends whose dads also raced gliders. 

Carl moved to Cornell Aeronautical Laboratories, Buffalo, New York, in 1957  where he continued his professional work in stability, control, and guidance stems for aircraft, missile, and space craft systems.  In 1959 he worked on special communications programs at the Sylvannia Advanced Research Communications Labortories in Buffalo, New York.  Carl moved to the SFO Bay area, California in the summer of 1962, where he worked for  Watkins-Johnson Corp, Stanford Research Institute, ArgoSystems, and Scitor Corporation as well as a self employed consultanting Aerospace Engineer.

Carl and his wife Laurie (who soloed in gliders) now reside in Reno, Nevada.  Carl recently retired from full time work, and is now a consulting aerospace and electronics system engineer.  On summer weekends Carl soars his Nimbus 3DM from the Reno, Nevada area soaring throughout the high desert sandbox and play-ground, called “The Great Basin”.

Carl started power flying in Columbus Ohio in 1955.  He currently holds a Commercial Single Engine Land (SEL) and Commercial Glider rating with an IFR endorsement.  He has flown 34 Types of powered aircraft over 46 years, with over  6,000 glider tows, logging over 4,400 SEL Hours.  Carl has flown 51 glider and 11 motor glider types for a total of 5,928 logged hours and 189,227 logged XC mi 304,609 km) for a total distance of  7.9 times around the earth!  This distance was accumulated in 29 states and 3 Provinces progressing from soloing in a 2-22 and a TG-3 to building time in Ka-6CR, Dart 17R, HP-14, ASW-12, Janus, and

Nimbus 3T, Nimbus 3DM and 4DM Gliders.  Carl's ASW-12 1V  which he flew for twelve years and and 69,000 mi is hanging ready for flight in front of a P-51 in the Air Museum in Hampton, Virginia.

Carl ran a towing and glider flight training business starting in 1985 through 1996 at the Air Sailing Glider-port near Reno, Nevada. He currently flies a Nimbus 3DM out of Minden Nevada. He has made non-stop straight out soaring flights from Reno to Bozeman, Montana (624 miles) and dog leg flights in excess of 720 miles (Minden Nevada to Ely to West Entrance of Yellowstone National Park).  He has flown 165 Diamond distance and 41 500 mi. cross country flights.  Carl holds Silver Badge # 812 (1964), Gold Badge #207 (1964), and Diamond Badge # U.S. 39, (Intl l # 400) (20 February 1965) and earned Double

Lennie Pin # 19 (1965), and the 1,000 KM Diplome (Intl l #60) on 24 May 1985 at Minden, NV.  Since retiring in 1998, Carl has soared over 26,800 miles in 126 flights. 

Carl is the current holder of the U.S. National 750 km Class Triangular Speed, and undeclared Out and Return Multi-Place Motor Glider and Open Class records.  He has held the 500-km open class speed record three times since 1977.  He has held numerous National, California, and Nevada State Soaring Records,

and has flown in over 24 Regional (winning 12), 14 National contests, and flown several Sports Class contests, winning two in the early years of Sports Class competition.

Carl has been strongly supportive of the developing Sports Class and recreational cross-country training.  He has been developing the CH Sports Class handicap system since 1963 and has published numerous papers on the subject, two given at FIA Symposiums.

He is currently assisting in cross country training, writing articles on handicapping, Air Space, GPS, special communications and navigation, soaring, aerodynamics, and meteorology.