Fred E. Culick, 1933–2023
Fred Ellsworth Clow Culick, the Richard L. and Dorothy M. Hayman Professor of Mechanical Engineering and Professor of Jet Propulsion, Emeritus, passed away on December 11. He was 90 years old.
Culick was born in Wolfeboro, New Hampshire, but spent most of his earliest years in Camden, Maine. He earned his doctorate from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in 1961 and began his association with Caltech as a research fellow in jet propulsion that same year. Two years later, he joined the faculty as an assistant professor of jet propulsion. He was named associate professor in 1966, full professor in 1971, professor of applied physics and jet propulsion in 1978, professor of mechanical engineering and jet propulsion in 1988, and Hayman Professor and professor of jet propulsion in 1997. He retired in 2004.
During his tenure, Culick's research focused on the dynamics of combustion chambers. Understanding those dynamics is important because unsteady motion in a combustion chamber can lead to uneven combustion and unpredictable thrust in rockets and jet engines. He also served in an advisory capacity at JPL, which Caltech manages for NASA, assisting with spacecraft engineering and design.
Outside of his academic research, Culick had varied interests that included painting and printmaking, art history, hockey, and aircraft.
He began playing hockey in his youth and continued during his time at MIT. At Caltech, he joined a club hockey team that was founded by Canadian graduate students in the early 1970s, earning the nickname "Fred the Jet." In its early years, the team practiced and played at an ice rink built inside a former grocery store in West Covina. Culick and his wife, Frederica "Fritzie" Mills Culick , would later help establish an ice rink located in the ballroom of the Pasadena Civic Auditorium from 1975 to 2011. He also coached youth hockey for many years in Southern California.
In addition to Culick's interest in aircraft flight dynamics and history, he also enjoyed flying . In the late 1970s, he co-founded a project to build two replicas of the Wright Brothers' 1903 Wright Flyer, the first heavier-than-air manned craft capable of sustained flight. One of the replicas is on display at the Federal Aviation Administration building in Los Angeles; the other can be seen at the Flabob Airport in Jurupa Valley, California.
As a licensed pilot, Culick served as chief engineer and test pilot for the Wright Flyer Project, which aimed to build a Wright Flyer modified to have safer flying characteristics. The aircraft never flew, but Culick was at its helm during tests on the ground.
Culick also owned a plane that he flew as a hobby. According to his daughter, Liza Hall Culick, he flew his family around California, across the country, and even to Mexico. With his son, Alexander Joseph Culick, he successfully undertook a venture to land the plane in each of the 48 states in the continental United States.
He was a co-author of On Great White Wings: The Wright Brothers and the Race for Flight, a nonfiction account of the Wright Brothers' first flight at Kitty Hawk, North Carolina.
He is survived by his wife, Frederica "Fritzie" Mills Culick (married June 1960); his children Liza Hall Culick and her partner Geralyn Migielicz; Alexander Joseph Culick and wife Hanne Culick, and their children Calin Culick, Vanessa Culick, and Adam Culick, and great-grandson Oliver Acurso (Vanessa); Marietta Culick Beecroft and husband Bart Frederick Beecroft, and granddaughter Aubrey Huxham Culick Harris; and his sister, Elizabeth (Culick) Bowman, and his nephew, Bradley Bowman.
Fred Culick, the Richard L. and Dorothy M. Hayman Professor of Mechanical Engineering and Professor of Jet Propulsion, Emeritus
Credit: Caltech