‘One of a kind.’ Family remembers engineer Atlee Cunningham Jr. as mentor, father, artist
Every Friday at 2:30 p.m., Elizabeth Cunningham received a call from her grandfather.
“It was just a pretty typical conversation — he called me while I was at work just checking on me and seeing how my week went,” she told the Star-Telegram.
This Friday was not the same for her.
Atlee Cunningham Jr., 86, her grandfather and an accomplished engineer for Lockheed Martin, died Jan. 30 when his car was found in a pond at River Crest Country Club. A Fort Worth police investigation is still open pending autopsy results from the medical examiner’s office, but the family believes the accident happened when he got confused while driving on a rainy night.
“I didn’t know that was going to be my last conversation with him,” said Elizabeth, who is 32.
Atlee Cunningham Jr. devoted decades of work to Lockheed Martin. Family and friends will remember him as a mentor, a loving father and grandfather, and a supporter of the arts and education.
“I don’t think there is anyone who can compete with that man’s work ethic,” Elizabeth said. “His accomplishments and his work really instilled upon me the importance of working very hard and trying to enjoy what you do while you’re working.”
Nearly 60 years of service at Lockheed Martin
Atlee Cunningham worked at the Fort Worth facility of the Lockheed Martin Aeronautics Company, originally called General Dynamics, beginning in 1965, according to his biography on the University of Texas at Austin School of Engineering website.
As an aerodynamics engineer specializing in aeroelastic and unsteady flows, Atlee provided key technical contributions to the original F-16 design that helped define the way that jet looks and flies. He eventually rose to senior fellow status, and over his almost 60-year career, contributed his expertise to a wide variety of Lockheed Martin aircraft, said Linda O’Brien, vice president and chief engineer for Lockheed Martin Aeronautics.
“Atlee’s passing was a shock to our entire team. In nearly 60 years with Lockheed Martin, he became one of the most revered engineers in the company,” O’Brien said in an email to the Star-Telegram. “He was able to simplify things so that a novice would understand, and he never made anyone feel inferior.”
“More important than his technical expertise was his role as a mentor to countless engineers who now carry his torch,” O’Brien said.
Atlee was an alumnus of University of Texas at Austin, where he completed his bachelor’s and master’s degrees and finally his PhD in mechanical engineering in 1966. He also taught as a visiting industrial professor at the SMU, UT Austin and UT Arlington graduate schools. He published more than 50 technical papers and obtained two aerodynamics-related patents.
At Lockheed, along with projects related to F-16 design and development he “provided support and guidance to NASA for developing a new technique for testing with rain (from a fire hose) in the 40x80 wind tunnel at NASA Ames,” the biography states.
According to the National Air and Space Museum at the Smithsonian, his technical areas of expertise in aerodynamics included aeroelasticity, analytical wind tunnel/water tunnel and flight testing experience, and trouble-shooting vibration problems for F-111, F-16, F-22, F-35, C-130H, C-130J and other foreign and domestic aircraft.
Atlee also served in the United States Navy on board the U.S.S. Saratoga for two years between 1962 and 1964.
Love for people, arts and music
Outside of his highly celebrated career, Atlee was a man who loved his family, and appreciated arts and music.
“He would just make friends wherever he went,” his son Christopher Cunningham said.
He was well known in the community and “just extremely friendly, very generous,” he said.
“He’d always loved the birthday parties we put on for him — it’s in August, so it’s always hot, still a barbecue, a bunch of meat and we always would make him a cake from scratch,” Christopher said.
On his last birthday, the family baked a carrot cake and lit it up with 86 candles. “We said happy birthday and he would blow it all out in one big puff,” Christopher said “He always got a kick out of it.”
Christopher said as they are preparing for his father’s funeral, he keeps wanting to meet with him to give a progress report. “It’s been tough knowing that he’s not here with us anymore,” he said.
“He was always the type of person who would take all the information first before he made judgments — he would get as much information as he can, and then kind of mull that over and think about it before he made a decision.”
Christopher said Atlee was very proud of his kids, grandchildren and great-grandchildren.
Christopher described his father as someone who believed in the “pencil and paper method. He didn’t have a cell phone, didn’t care for a cell phone — computer at home, that’s about it.”
His father enjoyed listening to classical music on his stereo. Atlee also donated to various arts and music organizations including the Fort Worth Symphony, Fort Worth Opera, Modern Art Museum, Kimbell Art Museum, The Cliburn, the Fort Worth Youth Orchestra, the Chamber Music Society of Fort Worth and the Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum.
Christopher said as he is learning about all the charity work his father has done it has been like, “putting together a big puzzle.”
“I would like him to be remembered as a very fun and loving father, and he was always there, a great guy,” Christopher said.
Elizabeth said along with his aerodynamic expertise, her grandfather also had artistic talent.
Atlee and his first wife, Pat Cunningham, won top awards from the Texas Fine Arts Association in a regional contest in 1972, according to the Star-Telegram’s archives.
He created geometric abstract paintings that were inspired by what he would see during technical work, Elizabeth said.
“He would build these canvases in fantastic, just highly unusual shapes, and he would build the frames very, very patiently and stretch the canvas over the frames and paint these beautiful crisp geometric lines,” she said.
“His paintings are really, really cool.,” Elizabeth said. “I always enjoy seeing his paintings. They always make you ponder.”
Elizabeth said her grandfather was a huge proponent of education.
“Every year up through college, his birthday and Christmas presents to me were he would take me to the bookstore and we would browse the history and science sections together for hours, and we just had the most fun doing that. That was the best present he could give me,” she said.
When asked about how she would like her grandfather to be remembered, Elizabeth took a long pause and with a trembling voice she replied, “probably the most difficult question you’ve asked me thus far, because my mind is just flooded with so many memories.”
“I want him to be remembered as someone who who valued education, who was never condescending, someone who valued art and culture and wanted others to learn and experience that as well, and somebody who was just so multi-faceted and had so many dimensions to him — really was one of a kind,” she said.
Elizabeth recalled that during one of her regular Friday talks with him, it had been a tough week for her at work, and he told her, “When the going gets tough, the tough get going, and you’re a tough kid.”