The year was 1957, and John Silva was on his way to work at KTLA-TV in Los Angeles, where he was chief engineer, when the idea of building a mobile news unit into a helicopter first occurred to him. His experiment revolutionized coverage of breaking news such as natural disasters and high-speed chases and live events like parades—not to mention daily traffic reports.
Silva, '42, died November 27 in Camarillo, Calif., of complications from pneumonia. He was 92.
Born in San Diego, John Daniel Silva attended MIT for two years, then transferred to Stanford to complete his degree in electrical engineering. After graduation he enlisted in the Navy and was stationed as a radar officer aboard the USS Shea, operating in the South Pacific near Okinawa.
Following the war, Silva took a job at Paramount Pictures as an engineer for an experimental television station, W6XYZ, which would become KTLA, the first commercial broadcast station west of the Rockies. As Silva rose to chief engineer, one of his major responsibilities "was to make sure that our mobile units were designed physically and electronically for maximum speed of operation in getting to 'on-the-spot' breaking news events quickly and getting on the air before the competition did," he related in a 2002 interview for the Archive of American Television.
But there were numerous technical issues with getting his "Telecopter" idea off the ground. For one, the standard camera equipment literally weighed a ton. Keeping the project closely guarded, lest competing stations get wind of it, Silva designed and machined lighter equipment using aluminum parts to bring the weight below the 368-pound FAA limit. He also added a shock absorbing stabilization system and a helical antenna that extended below the body of the helicopter.
The first successful test flight occurred in July 1958; by September the KTLA Telecopter was in regular use. The development of the Telecopter earned Silva two Emmys—in 1970 and 1974. "John's legacy is of leading the industry to develop new tools," Dave Cox, KTLA's current chief engineer, reflected in a Los Angeles Times obituary. "He actually helped define live television in the infancy of this industry."
Silva is survived by his wife of 30 years, Mary Lou Steinkraus-Silva; daughters Patricia Vawter, Kathleen Silva and Karen Samaha by his first wife, Brooksie Butler; and a granddaughter.
Ryan Eshoff is a student in the graduate program in journalism and a Stanford intern.
