Heinemann Dies; Pioneer Designer of Attack Aircraft

Edward H. Heinemann, a prolific aircraft designer whose pioneering fighter planes earned him the nickname “Mr. Attack Aviation,” died Tuesday of kidney failure at his Rancho Santa Fe home. He was 83.

Most famous for creating the A-4 Skyhawk, for years the plane of choice for the Navy’s Blue Angels acrobatic team, Heinemann is also credited with leading aircraft designers into the jet age. His Skyrocket was the first plane to go twice the speed of sound.

Military historians say Heinemann’s Dauntless dive bomber, which he developed at Douglas Aircraft Co., helped turn the tide of World War II in the air-sea battles of the Coral Sea and Midway.

In the 1950s, during the Korean War, 80% of the Navy’s carrier-based aircraft were of Heinemann’s design (among them, his favorite: the A-3D Skywarrior--a large attack plane, nicknamed “the Whale”).

“No one better deserves the title ‘Mr. Attack Aviation,’ ” retired Adm. Thomas H. Moorer, former chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, wrote of Heinemann in a foreword to the engineer’s 1980 autobiography. Moorer called Heinemann’s aircraft “superlative machines.”

Heinemann, who served as an adviser to five presidents, liked to say he believed in the “KISS” theory: “Keep It Simple, Stupid!” When he critiqued other designers’ work, as he often was asked to do, his most common advice was to get rid of the non-essentials.

To make sure his planes functioned properly, Heinemann was willing to take risks. Once, to test one aircraft’s landing precision, he made chalk marks on the runway where he believed it should touch down and then lay down on the runway with a camera.

When the plane landed, 6 feet away, he captured it all on film.

Occasionally, he pondered the moral implications of building fighting machines. But he said his desire to build a better aircraft kept him going.

“I knew damned good and well I couldn’t be vacillating,” he said in a 1983 interview. “I had to decide I was in the damn business and, God, I was going to do the best job I could. Anybody that vacillates and doesn’t know what they’re doing, better stay out.”

The son of a Michigan furniture maker, Heinemann dropped out of Manual Arts High School in Los Angeles at age 17 and found his first drafting job. In the 1930s, he began designing and building planes, and he would continue to do so until his semi-retirement in 1973 (in a recent interview, he said he had never fully retired).

In 1953, President Dwight D. Eisenhower presented him with the Collier Trophy, the most prestigious award in American aviation, for his role in developing the nation’s first supersonic fighter plane. During the 1960s, he served as a guest adviser and observer for the first U.S. manned space shots.

In 1983, Heinemann received the nation’s highest scientific honor, the National Medal of Science, from President Ronald Reagan at a White House ceremony.

Heinemann is survived by his wife, Zell; a daughter, Joan Heinemann of Irvine; a stepdaughter, Victoria Wall of Pasadena, and five grandchildren.

Funeral arrangements were incomplete Tuesday.