Under the Radar Screen

AIL's unorthodox philosophy led military contractor to success

By James Bernstein | Staff Writer

AIL, along with Grumman and Republic, were defense pioneers on LI. Here P-47s in production at Republic for the United States and Britain. (Photo Courtesy Cradle of Aviation Museum)

A FEW EXECUTIVES of AIL Systems Inc. left work early one bright summer day in the 1950s and went fishing off Oyster Bay, in Long Island Sound. They didn't bring any poles, bait or sinkers. And they weren't playing hooky, either.

It was all about work.

They had rigged up a device that emitted electric currents. They were testing a theory that, perhaps, the fish would be attracted to the surface by the electricity and would swim near the boat, where they could be scooped into a net. If their idea worked, the American fishing industry would be revolutionized.

"It all had nothing to do with electronic jamming or counter-measures," the type of work AIL did, said Winfield Fromm, one of those aboard the boat that day, who years later went on to become the company's president. "But we felt we are a laboratory, and we should try it," Fromm said during an interview taped for the company's archives.

All Fromm and the others caught that day were some quips from people at the office. But the effort said something about AIL: It was a company not afraid to try things, even if they sounded unorthodox.

"AIL has always been the largest collection of entrepreneurs in any company that I have ever known," said Dick Dunne, who worked there as assistant to the president for 15 years in the 1970s and '80s. "You were never limited as to what you could do."

Today, AIL is one of Long Island's largest electronics companies, though with about 1,000 employees it is much smaller than in the go-go defense days of the '80s. As a smaller company, AIL typifies what has happened to the Island's once-mighty defense industry.

After reaching a peak of 80,000 in 1986 during the height of the Reagan defense buildup, the industry's work force on Long Island has plummeted to 30,000. The era when Grumman Corp. was turning out five different types of Navy airplanes and Fairchild Republic Co. was still an Air Force contractor is over.

Yet, AIL is a survivor because it has diversified, doing business in nonmilitary markets as well as keeping a hand in defense. While it still builds systems designed to jam radar of enemy aircraft, it's also working on satellite technology and environmental sensor systems.

The company's roots can be traced to a handful of people, most notably Hector R. Skifter, a Minnesota farm boy who loved to tinker with radios and electricity, and who became AIL's first president after World War II. Skifter had much in common with another Long Island aerospace and defense pioneer, Leroy R. Grumman.

Skifter and Grumman were both quiet, intensely private engineers who liked to smoke pipes, listen carefully to employees and think big thoughts. Grumman died in 1982, decades after formally retiring as head of the company he founded.

Skifter died in 1964, while he was still AIL's president.

"He set the tone on the kind of company it became in terms of his emphasis on people, education and the importance of technology," said Bud Payton, a veteran AIL executive who recently retired as the company's vice president for advanced technology. "Skifter was cerebral, gracious and bright."

During World War II, Skifter worked for the U.S. government on radio communications. Early on, he was summoned to Columbia University, where scientists were working on electronic devices for the Allied cause. The scientists called their group Airborne Instrument Laboratory.

One of AIL's biggest projects during the war was the development of an airborne magnetic submarine detector, used to combat German U-boats. Bob Schulz, now 88 and living in Palo Alto, Calif., was one of the engineers who worked on the device.

"It was a guided bomb hung underneath the wing," Schulz said. "As the bomber flew alongside a ship, the co-pilot released" the weapon and electronically steered it.

In 1942 the AIL group moved to Mineola, taking offices on Old Country Road and continuing to work on electronic equipment for the war effort. It employed about 350 people. "It had a small company atmosphere. Everybody knew everybody," said John Clarke of Syosset, an engineer back then and, in the late 1970s, an AIL president. Toward war's end, AIL worked on several electronic counter-measures and jamming devices against the Germans' radio command guided missiles and V-2 ballistic missiles.

AIL had its share of characters. One was Eugene Fubini, an engineer who flew with the Eighth U.S. Army Air Force on bombing runs over Italy just to make sure the electronic equipment that came out of the lab worked properly. He is still remembered at the company for climbing on top of conference tables and shouting to get a point across.

Once the war ended, America's defense companies and weapons labs downsized dramatically, AIL among them. But Skifterkept the company going, recruiting scientific and engineering staff and arranging to get working capital from a subsidiary of American Airlines, which was attracted because AIL was working on navigation and radio systems for the young airline industry.

AIL provided radar systems for the Berlin Airlift in 1949, and did landmark studies and experiments in ground radar use for air traffic control. But it never received as much recognition as its geographical cousin, Grumman, which built Hellcats and Wildcats that were famous during World War II, and later, the F-14 Tomcat. AIL's products were obscure and difficult for lay people to comprehend. It made jamming equipment for Grumman's EA-6B Prowler, but AIL's role in the airplane was definitely back-burner news.