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Malcom Philip Ferguson

"When you have got the time to step back and survey all you've done, your sense of accomplishment changes a bit," Malcolm Ferguson reflected. "After nearly a half century of service with the Bendix people, that ol' pressure carburetor still remains my best contribution," the former president of the corporation said.

The ol' pressure carburetor is one of those engineering gems of history:  it came along at the right time--just before War II, and helped save countless thousands of lives. Its development in the mid-1930s was a brilliant step forward in aviation safety. Prior to the pressure carburetor, a unit that contains fuel pump and vacuum in its own sealed atmosphere, carburetion systems constantly failed when pilots did aerobatics, or the center of gravity shifted.

The Bendix-designed carburetor was used on the engines of virtually every aircraft in the Allied arsenal. It was perfected in 1938 while Ferguson was general manager of the Bendix Products Division, South Bend. He joined the company in 1919, following Navy service and his graduation from Syracuse University, as a mechanical engineer.

"Our biggest problem, of course, was after the war. There were so many human problems of returning to peacetime." He was appointed president in 1946.  "But let me tell you that the 1950s were really an engineer's dream."

[[image - small drawing of a propeller]]

Malcolm P. Ferguson: born Elmira Heights, N.Y., June 20, 1896.

[[image No. 54 - black & white photograph of Malcolm Ferguson and Jane Page.]]

[[image No. 55 - black & white photograph of Malcolm Ferguson and Paul Albert Mantz]]

[[caption]] A joyful Malcolm Ferguson with two 1947 Bendix Trophy winners: Jane Page, who won speed dash for women in her P-38 (54), and the indomitable Paul Albert Mantz, who flew a North American P-51 at 462.423 mph. (55) Mantz is only three time Bendix winner: 1946-1948. [[/caption]]

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