My Grandfather and the Bendix Fuel Injection Carburetor
In the movie “Top Gun Maverick”, Tom Cruise, as a fighter jet pilot, is shown flying upside down for what seems like more than half the time. He makes it seem like it is a normal thing to do. In reality, airplanes and specifically military airplanes, have not always been able to fly upside down.
In the history of aviation, it is a development that first took place in the 1930s. Before then, when a plane would try to fly upside down for any more than a very short time, because of the negative force of gravity, the engine would either be starved of or flooded with fuel and would stall, only to re-start again when going upright. This would produce a puff of black smoke, which, in combat, would alert enemy aircraft that there was another plane in the area. It would also limit the pilot’s ability to perform certain maneuvers.
Needless to say, the ability to fly upside down was and still is a major advantage in wartime military combat.
My grandfather, Jeptha Mackenzie Miller, commonly known as “Mack” for obvious reasons, and Frank Mock developed the injection (pressure) carburetor in 1938. This carburetor enabled airplanes to fly upside down, and through high G turns, and climbs and dives without difficulty. It was a major innovation. It did away with the float and was what we would today call mechanical single port or throttle body fuel injection.
Upon further development of this injection carburetor, the Bendix-Stromberg carburetors became the most commonly used carburetors (they still called them carburetors) in World War II aircraft. These devices truly did help the U.S. and its Allies win the war.
J. Mackenzie Miller
Grandpa Mack was chief engineer for the Stromberg Carburetor division of Bendix Corporation in South Bend, Indiana, from 1929 until his untimely death at age 49 in 1944. Frank Mock was a prolific inventor at Bendix who eventually held 170 patents.
Early evidence I found for this is a patent Grandpa Mack applied for in 1929, which was issued in 1932 for an earlier version of such a carburetor.
The development of this carburetor is immortalized in a comic strip created by the famous Chicago Tribune illustrator Walter Berndt in 1939. This depicted a scene in Grandpa Mack’s office showing the development of the Stromberg Injection Carburetor.
Written at the bottom of this strip is a reference to the production value of these carburetors in January 1944, of $11,000,000 ($11 million, for this one month alone). This is the current equivalent of $189 million. This was during the height of World War II. That’s a lot of carburetors!
This commissioned cartoon, “Development of the Stromberg Injection Carburetor” by Walter Berndt dated 11/13/1939, depicts my grandfather Mack Miller (in the wide brimmed hat) in his office at Bendix Corp. in South Bend, Ind. Below in handwriting marks the significance of their work: “Production Jan. 1944 $11,000,000 (Per Mo.)”
Unfortunately, Grandpa Mack did not live to see the end of the war, which occurred a year after he died.
My father, Bob Miller, was in the Army in Italy and North Africa when he learned that his father was gravely ill and that he needed to come back to Indiana. He then traveled by troop ship, which took one month. But he did arrive in time to be able to see his father just before he died in June 1944. Mack held on through sheer grit and determination for that month to see his only child one last time before he died. Dad was only 21 years old.
In 1951, dad went to work for Bendix and eventually retired from there in 1981.
In the late 1950s, Bendix offered an automotive fuel injection system called Electrojector. It was commercially unsuccessful, as the technology was not advanced enough at that time, was very expensive to produce and was unreliable. This system eventually became the Bosch D-Jetronic. Automotive fuel injection did not become common in passenger cars until the mid-1980s. Today virtually all cars (and aircraft) have some form of fuel injection. The last car sold in America to have a carburetor was the 1990 Subaru Justy. These systems are based on the principles and development that my grandfather and Frank Mock pioneered back in the 1930s. I don’t believe that either one of these men has received the credit that they deserve for this.
After Grandpa Mack died, Frank Mock lived another 20 years, before passing away at age 80 in 1964. His death notice and obituary were prominently featured in the New York Times.
My main regret is that I was never able to meet Grandpa Mack, as I was born years after he died. I would have enjoyed knowing him. In some ways I am following in his footsteps and standing on his shoulders. I have been chief engineer, as he was, for three different companies; have patents like he did and am currently working with gas turbine engines (the successor to the radial piston engines Mack worked with).
So, let this serve as my tribute to Mack and acknowledgement of his significant accomplishments and contributions to the aviation industry and to our country. I am proud of what he achieved, in a life cut way too short.
Flying upside down is a metaphor for doing anything that is not normal or natural for a human being to do, or achieving things that expand the envelope of human knowledge, experience, and endeavors. As such, we can all have our moments where we fly upside down.
Author’s note:
I really enjoyed researching and writing about this side of my family, the Millers. It is uncanny how much I followed in my grandfather’s footsteps ― a man that I never met. And I am amazed that I found that framed cartoon hidden in my office closet. It hung in my childhood home when I was growing up. I didn’t understand its meaning or significance then, but I do now.