Ready For Takeoff - Turn Your Aviation Passion Into A Career

Bob Shumaker was born in New Castle, Pennsylvania in 1933.  His father was a lawyer and his mother a writer.   After graduating from public schools he attended Northwestern University for a year and then the United States Naval Academy where he was a boxer, a cross-country runner and a scholar.  After flight training he joined VF-32, a fighter squadron in Jacksonville, Florida flying F8 Crusaders.  He was a finalist in the Apollo astronaut selection, but a temporary physical ailment prevented his selection.  In 1964 he earned a masters degree in aeronautical engineering and then joined VF-154 in San Diego, California.  About this time he married Lorraine Shaw of Montreal.  In February 1965 he was shot down on a mission over North Vietnam and spent the next eight years as a POW.  After eight years of imprisonment and having suffered multiple tortures and solitary confinement, he was repatriated and returned to school to earn a doctorate degree in electrical engineering.  As a Captain he was the government proj