Sven Dodington, 79, Inventor of System To Guide Aircraft
By BRUCE LAMBERT
Published: January 20, 1992
Sven H. Dodington, the inventor of the basic navigation system used to guide aircraft throughout the world, died on Jan. 13 at the Crestwood Nursing Home in Whippany, N.J. He was 79 years old and a resident of Mountain Lakes, N.J.
He died of natural causes after a long illness, his family said.
Mr. Dodington, an engineer who held 50 patents, developed the system that directs planes to airports using radio beacons, technically known as tactical air navigation and distant measuring equipment. The system is also used in air-traffic control. A Career at I.T.T.
Born in Vancouver, British Columbia, he grew up in England and San Francisco. He earned a bachelor's degree at Stanford University 1934.
Most of his career was at International Telephone and Telegraph Corporation in Manhattan, where he started in 1941 as a department head in its Federal Laboratories. During World War II he headed much of the Allied research on airborne radar and countermeasures. Later he worked at I.T.T.'s radio navigation labs in Nutley, N.J. In 1958 he was promoted to vice president of the Avionics Division and in 1969 became an executive at I.T.T.'s Technical Department. He retired in 1975.
Mr. Dodington was a past president of the Aerospace and Electronics System Society, a past chairman of the National Aerospace Electronics Conference, a member of the Avionics Panel of the Defense Science Board and a consultant to the National Aeronautics and Space Administration and the Radio Technical Commission for Aeronautics. He received the Pioneer Award of the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers.
He wrote numerous articles and was a co-author of "Electronics Engineers Handbook" and the "Encyclopedia of Science and Technology," both published by McGraw-Hill.
Surviving are his wife, the former Kathleen Dvorak; two sons, Thomas, of Martindale, Tex., and Peter, of Kansas City, Mo.; a daughter, Susan, of Aspen, Colo., and five grandchildren.