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A Tribute
Michael A. Dornheim 1954-2006

He may have been the world's only forensic engineering journalist. Michael A. Dornheim, who joined this magazine 22 years ago and died this month, could explain better than any other journalist how things fly in the atmosphere and in space--and, more importantly, why they sometimes don't fly right.

Dornheim, who was both our Los Angeles bureau chief and senior engineering editor and whose last article was the June 5 cover story, was killed on the night of June 3, when the car he was driving plunged into a steep ravine in the Santa Monica Mountains. He was 51.

Dornheim brought to all his work the qualities Aviation Week & Space Technology editors and readers value most--accuracy, balance, clarity and, above all, technical insight. Over the years, he won a slew of prizes including three Journalist of the Year Awards from the U.K.'s Royal Aeronautical Society. He's a finalist for yet another this year.

The depth of Mike Dornheim's technical understanding on almost every subject this magazine covers was unsurpassed among the staff. Occasionally, it was unexcelled, period. His reporting likely has helped save lives. He wrote about virtually every major air safety issue of the past two decades. His work on fly-by-wire flight controls, composite structures and fuel tank explosions is cited among the best analyses on the subjects, not just in journalism but in the technical literature as well. When a NASA administrator vented his frustration with "foam-ologists" who were second-guessing the agency's efforts to keep the space shuttle's external tank from shedding insulation, we were pretty sure he was fuming about Dornheim's stories. Mike was right, of course, and NASA is still working on the problem.

Such reportage would have been enough to make him a valuable asset here. But Mike also had the greatest breadth among our reporters. He could write with authority on the aerodynamics of forward-swept wings one week, the volcanology of a Jovian moon the next.

The holder of degrees in mathematics and aeronautical engineering from Stanford University, Dornheim began his career in industry. He worked at Boeing on the 757 program and the company's wind shear task force.

Joining the magazine's L.A. bureau in 1984, he quickly earned both colleagues' and readers' respect. One industry PR man tells of setting up an interview for Mike with a manager of a large, complex program. After Mike left, the manager opined that "Dornheim didn't really know what he was talking about." Months later, the PR guy recalls, "Events made it clear it was the manager, not Mike, who really didn't know what he was talking about."

One of Dornheim's best known scoops involved flying and photography more than research and reporting. In 1988, the B-2 stealth bomber was to be rolled out at Palmdale, Calif., for its first public viewing. But U.S. officials considered any glimpse of its saw-tooth trailing edge to be too revealing of sensitive design information. So they made sure the audience would only be able to see the aircraft nose on.

That didn't sit well here. If Soviet satellites could see the B-2 from above, the magazine's editors reasoned, why shouldn't Aviation Week's readers, too? Amazingly, while the FAA was going to restrict takeoffs and landings near the event, overflights were not forbidden. So Dornheim, a private pilot, rented a Cessna 172 and orbited over the rollout with photographer Bill Hartenstein. Asked later how he summoned the nerve, Mike responded with characteristic wit, "I just wanted to get the magazine to pay for some of my flying time."

But Dornheim was best known for his articles, sometimes lengthy, usually full of thoroughly explained inferences and often accompanied by graphics that he himself compiled. In what may be the ultimate tribute to a reporter, there were those in aviation and aerospace who worried that technical subtleties might be misunderstood and therefore insisted on talking only to Mike, and there were others who feared Mike might understand too much and asked to speak with anybody but Mike.

Says another engineer-reporter here, "Over the years, Mike and I had some titanic 'nerd-wrestling' battles. When the argument disintegrated into Reynolds numbers and enthalpy/entropy, I threw in the towel." But even the most heated argument with Mike was never the least bit personal. A true intellectual, he cared passionately about figuring things out and not one whit whether his own going-in position prevailed.

The same precision and attention to detail that made Dornheim a top-notch engineer and reporter sometimes made him exasperating to work with. His skepticism could border on cynicism--especially when it came to software "solutions," "PowerPoint engineering," "paper" airplanes and rockets, bureaucratic obfuscation and marketing hyperbole. His nocturnal work habits, pack-rat office and principled refusal to disclose his Social Security number were legendary. And he always seemed to regard meeting a deadline as an exercise in envelope expansion. But if people in our shop sometimes pulled their hair out as he crafted his stories, there was never any doubt about the superior quality of the results. As one long-time colleague said, "Mike was not the fastest gun in the West, but he was the best shot."

An engineer's engineer, Dornheim was an unapologetic geek. He didn't actually sport a plastic pocket protector or wear propeller-topped beanie. But he did still use the slide rule his mom had passed down. And he favored plaid short-sleeve shirts with a tiny notebook always tucked in the pocket. He would calculate Sun angles on his patio before planting tomatoes. And friends allege he even marked the date he acquired several pairs of socks for a durability test designed to guide his subsequent hosiery purchases.

Mike's rationality did not preclude his having a big heart and an impish sense of humor, though. And he had a generosity of spirit that in no way called attention to itself. He was a ready resource for colleagues and a font of technical information for friends.

But when it came to the magazine he loved, Mike Dornheim had a laser-like focus on finding the truth and getting it on the page. That's all he wrote. And he couldn't care less if editors, readers or sources didn't like it. As a matter of fact, he loved to watch 'em squirm. Mercilessly, meticulously, he would dig for the truth and demand that text and graphics be as nearly perfect as humanly possible. Exasperating? Sometimes. But what terrific results!

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News Breaks

2006 International Aerospace Journalist of the Year Awards
Aviation Week & Space Technology
07/24/2006, page 19

Four editors of Aviation Week & Space Technology and two writers for a sister publication have won 2006 International Aerospace Journalist of the Year Awards from the U.K.'s Royal Aeronautical Society.

Michael A. Dornheim, the magazine's late senior engineering editor, won the Northrop Grumman Award for the best breaking news story for "Skunks Working," which reported--and expanded upon--the first flight of a Lockheed Martin airship (AW&ST Feb. 6, p. 24).

Editor-In-Chief Anthony L. Velocci, Jr., and Rocky Mountain Bureau Chief William B. Scott won the Messier-Dowty Safran Group Award for the best air show writing. Their "Birds and Blues" cover package recounted flights with the U.S. Air Force's Thunderbirds and Navy's Blue Angels demonstration teams (AW&ST Mar. 21, 2005, p. 44).

Managing Editor James R. Asker was honored for "Reach for the Sky," the lead article in a package that explored very light jets and their potential as "air taxis" (AW&ST July 25, 2005, p. 44). The piece won the Gulfstream Award for reporting on business aviation.

Writers for the Aviation Week monthly Business & Commercial Aviation picked up two honors. Contributing Editor David Esler won the Honeywell Award for the best writing on systems or technology for his feature on the workings, history and future of full authority digital engine controls. A non-journalist, David Huntzinger, the vice president for safety of TAG Aviation, received the Airbus Award for Safety Writing for his piece on PINC, short for "procedures intentional non-compliance," or pilots willfully ignoring established standard flight procedures.

Seventeen of the journalism awards were presented at a dinner July 16 at the Royal Court of Justice in London. Dornheim's breaking news entry was judged the best of all the winners, earning him, posthumously, the Rolls-Royce Award for the Aerospace Journalist of the Year. Guy Norris of Flight International won the Airbus Decade of Excellence Award.