Longtime resident and community activist Malcolm J. Abzug, Ph.D., died on May 23 at the age of 87. Abzug was awarded the Pacific Palisades Community Service Award in 1997 for his years of varied work in the community. He received the Trail Volunteer of the Year Award in 2001 from the Santa Monica Mountains Trails Council in recognition of many hours spent building and maintaining hiking trails. In the mid-1990s he started a vegetable gardening program at Paul Revere Middle School and ran it for six years, until a regular teacher was found to take it over. In addition, he served as board member of the Palisades Human Relations Council, Pacific Palisades Residents Association, No Oil, Inc., Graffiti Busters, the Village Green Committee, and the Temescal Canyon Association. His book ‘Palisades Oil,’ published in 1991 and available at the Palisades Branch Library, is a definitive history of the 22-year community struggle over oil drilling in the Palisades. What is less well known to residents is Dr. Abzug’s illustrious career as one of the nation’s leading aeronautical engineers. His accomplishments were recognized in 1996 by his election to the prestigious U.S. National Academy of Engineering, an honor shared by fewer than 2,000 engineers in the United States. He was also a Fellow of the American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics and chair of the Institute’s Los Angeles Section from 1958 to 1959. Abzug’s engineering career spanned some 50 years, as recounted in his autobiography ‘Waco Gliders to Stealth Bomber,’ which is also in the Palisades library, as is a Cambridge University Press book ‘Airplane Stability and Control,’ co-authored by an MIT professor. A second edition appeared in 2002. Another publication was ‘Computational Flight Dynamics,’ a textbook appearing in 1998. He held a B.S. in engineering from MIT and, in 1962, a doctorate in engineering from UCLA. At the Douglas Aircraft Company, he was Chief Engineer, Advanced Flight Mechanics. He also served as a department manager at TRW Systems, a project engineer at Sperry Gyroscope, an adjunct professor at both UCLA and USC, and as an independent consultant for many southland firms, including Northrop, and for the Canadair Corporation of Montreal. A naval officer in World War II, Abzug later served on numerous government advisory committees. In the engineering community, he was best known for pioneering work in flight mechanics. When, in the 1950s, the nation’s first jet fighters experienced dangerous pitching and yawing motions in rapid rolls, Abzug’s small perturbation stability method was used at his own company and in other groups to find solutions. In the 1980s, he developed wind correction logic for the air measurement data system of the B-2 stealth bomber. For relaxation, Abzug grew vegetables, built and maintained hiking trails in the Santa Monica Mountains with a local Sierra Club crew, flew light planes and sailplanes, and rowed a single shell at the UCLA Marina Aquatic Center. He held a commercial pilot’s license, with multi-engine, instrument, and glider ratings. When Abzug learned about his award from the Community Council in 1997, he told a Palisadian-Post reporter, ‘I enjoy giving to the community. The work means a great deal to me. I feel honored to be awarded for something I do with great pleasure.’ He is survived by his wife of 61 years, Gordon Breedon Abzug, whom he married on August 24, 1946; two sons, administrative law judge Michael David Abzug of Hancock Park, and dentist Dr. Mark McGregor Abzug of Scottsdale, Arizona; and seven grandchildren. Services will be private.
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