He Was Voyager’s Radio Link to Outside World

While Dick Rutan and Jeana Yeager were setting a world record flying around the globe non-stop without refueling, a support crew of radio technicians worked on the ground at Mojave Airport, desperately fighting to keep communications lines open, feeding vital navigational information to Voyager as it braved storms, rationed its limited supply of fuel and struggled with occasional engine failure.

Dick Blosser, a Fullerton engineer, was at the center of this hectic exchange of radio messages.

As radio communications coordinator for last month’s Voyager flight, Blosser, 58, supervised a staff of 12 that worked eight-hour shifts around the clock monitoring how well Rutan and Yeager held up during the psychologically and physically demanding nine-day flight.

Prayers--and Fears

Back this week at his engineering job at Rockwell International in Anaheim, Blosser remembers that he and the 46 other volunteers at mission control at Mojave Airport prayed for the success of the 25,000-mile flight--but also had a gnawing fear that disaster could happen any minute.

“You always felt this tremendous pressure not to make any mistake that could lead to the failure of the mission or that would endanger the lives of Dick or Jeana,” he said.

“Copying down the (Voyager’s) location correctly was a heavy responsibility. If the plane had gone down, a search mission would have been instigated based on the information you took down. You would’ve been the last person to have heard from them. What would’ve happened if the search had gotten under way based on something you’d taken down wrong?” Blosser said.

Uncertainty preyed on his mind when hours would go by with no communication between Voyager and the radio staff. Sometimes the numbing silence was the result of Rutan’s turning down the sound in his headset to get some sleep. More often, it was caused by weak radio signals.

Those hours seemed like an eternity to Blosser because he had no way of knowing whether the Voyager had crashed or was having other difficulties.

“Then radio silence would suddenly be broken with Dick saying: ‘Mission Control, this is Voyager I.’

“Just hearing his voice told you a lot,” Blosser said. “You thought to yourself: ‘Thank God, he’s safe; he hasn’t crashed.’

“And from the tone of his voice you could tell that there was no emergency, that everything was all right. . . . You were the first one in the whole world to know that.”

Mike Hance, assistant director of the Voyager project, said communications was a crucial link in the success of the mission. “No matter how well the weather people or the others here on the ground did their jobs, it wouldn’t have done much good unless we’d been able to get this information to the Voyager,” he said in a telephone interview from the Voyager hangar. “Dick Blosser (and the communications crew) did an excellent job because Dick and Jeana were able to get all their reports. The success of the mission demonstrates that.”

Volunteered Services

The Voyager tested many assumptions about air travel, and Blosser believes this challenge attracted him to volunteer his services to the mission 1 1/2 years ago.

“I was curious about what they were trying to accomplish,” he said in recalling how a friend introduced him to Rutan in Mojave in September, 1985.

Because Blosser had been a licensed pilot for 35 years and had developed expertise in both short- and long-range communications as a radio hobbyist, it seemed natural that his talents could be used in setting up a communications system to monitor Voyager’s planned round-the-world trip.

Blosser, who has a master’s degree in engineering from UCLA, for 25 years has been in charge of conducting computerized performance trials of models of submarines and other ships being designed by Rockwell.

When it was decided last January that mission control would be in Mojave, Blosser began setting up the communications system during weekends and vacations from his job.

Radio Buffs Recruited

He loaned the project his shortwave radio and acquired the necessary government licenses for radio transmissions between Voyager and Mojave. He also recruited other radio buffs to staff the ground communications system.

Throughout 1986, he spent most weekends in Mojave making improvements on the radio room that had been set up in a trailer adjacent to Voyager’s hangar, or testing the communications system during its trial flights.

He would often be accompanied by his wife, Ruth, who pitched in to help sell Voyager souvenirs in the gift shop set up in the hangar to help underwrite the cost of the project. They were encouraged in their efforts, they said, by their six adult children by previous marriages.

The culmination of their efforts came when Voyager took off Dec. 14 from Edwards Air Force Base and headed across the Pacific.

As Blosser recalled the first day of the flight recently at his home, he suddenly leapt from a living room sofa and waved a visitor to follow him to his den. “You’ve got to hear the tapes (of the flight conversations),” he insisted.

The room was filled with radios, a tape recorder and other electronic equipment. A desk was piled high with Voyager flight reports.

Except for cataloguing these nine days of Voyager conversations as part of the historical record of the flight, Blosser said his involvement with the project is complete.

“Sure, I’ve experienced something that can’t be duplicated again,” he said, “but I’m just an average guy, and I don’t see my life changing much.”

As for the logistics of the radio transmission, Blosser said that sometimes radio messages between Mojave and the Voyager were relayed by ground stations around the globe. Other times, orbiting satellites formed the link in the communications chain.

Location Kept Secret

Radio messages between ground and Voyager to exchange navigational information occurred at least every six hours and frequently more often.

The most crucial information that Blosser said Voyager provided to Mojave was how the craft was performing. In turn, the most important information Mojave provided Voyager dealt with changing weather conditions, which could cause the experimental craft to change its course.

Most of this navigational information was exchanged using a numerical code, rather than words, because letters like “I” and “Y” sound so much alike that misunderstandings easily occur, Blosser said. Also, the code successfully prevented interference from messages by possible mischievous ham radio operators and kept the location of the Voyager secret from sightseeing planes.

However, most routine conversation took place in ordinary English. Listening to taped excerpts of this communication indicates how difficult it was to understand much of what was said.

While the voices from Mojave are clear, those from Voyager fade in and out and are often indistinct. Only someone with a trained ear, like Blosser, can make out the words.

“People who aren’t involved in communications always assume that radio transmission will be available whenever you need it,” Blosser said. “But you can’t assume that, and that wasn’t the case with the Voyager mission.”

Contrary to the public perception created during the flight, the communications channel often failed. That’s because only about 5% of the radio transmissions were made available to the public, and these were the clearest and strongest signals, Blosser said.

Actually during half the flight “the communications were so poor that the average individual couldn’t understand them,” Blosser said.

Static Interferes

As a visitor listened to the tape of the conversation between Rutan and mission control as he began his flight across Africa on the fifth day, static all but drowned out human sound.

Mission control asked Rutan: “What are your wind conditions?”

Because of interference with the radio signal, Rutan mistook “wind” for “Jeana.” He replied: “Jeana’s awake and doing fine.”

It took about five minutes, with the radio signal fading in and out, before the confusion was ended and the conversation turned to the weather.

However, Blosser added, “We were always able to get messages through. Sometimes, we couldn’t talk directly to each other and had to talk first to a ground controller who in turn talked to Dick. Doing it this way sometimes took as long as an hour, and it was frustrating for both the pilots and us on the ground.

“At times like this you felt like ripping your headset off and throwing it against the wall. But you had to control your emotions. You had to be patient and speak slowly. . . . You were their only contact with reality, and they depended on you.”

Emotional Ups, Downs

The nine-day trip was so fatiguing and physically uncomfortable for the pilots that there were periods “when Dick would turn down his (radio) headset because he didn’t want to talk. He was tired, irritable . . . or scared.

“Other times, he was (emotionally) up and feeling great. He’d really want to talk, and we’d patch him through to something like ‘The Today Show.’ ”

Because of these shifting moods, Blosser said it was important to be able to “judge from Dick’s voice what he wanted or needed; it was our job to interpret his moods.

“He’d slip into code words like: ‘This kid’s tired; night, night.’ He’d turn his headset down and go to sleep. Jeana would then take over piloting the plane. We knew they didn’t want to be bothered for a couple of hours.”

Despite the trying times experienced by the ground crew, Blosser said, “It was a great privilege to do this. Communications people are a special breed. They get their reward in that they get to talk directly to (the pilots). Even the President can’t do that.

“We developed a certain personal relationship (with Rutan and Yeager) that’s unique. There’s a certain attachment, camaraderie, that you develop talking to each other. That’s the thrill of communications.”

But Blosser acknowledged, “I think we felt as much relief as pride when Dick and Jeana landed.”