BEDFORD, Texas — This story doesn’t end how it was expected to two months ago when Carl Wernicke emailed the WFAA newsroom gushing about how his dad, Rod Wernicke, and uncle, Ken Wernicke – who are identical twins – are kind of a big deal.
“I’m a big deal,” Rod Wernicke asked. “How did I get to be a big deal?”
Here’s how: after four years as a Navy pilot, Rod Wernicke got a job at Bell Helicopter in Fort Worth, working alongside his brother.
“We’d get loud arguing with each other, which would disturb everybody so they had to separate us,” Rod Wernicke remembered.
Both were engineers, but a more appropriate label would be inventors.
Ken Wernicke was instrumental in developing the tilt rotor aircraft, which has been widely-used by almost every branch of the United States military.
In his free time, Ken Wernicke invented a flying car.
“He liked to create, create, create,” Rod Wernicke said. “All the time [Ken] was coming up with some crazy different thing.”
Oftentimes, Rod Wernicke got pulled in to help.
Together, they created the Fast Track Amphibian, a vehicle that can travel high speeds on land and water.
Even today, from his tiny apartment in Bedford, Rod Wernicke is still tinkering, currently dissecting how the Casa Mañana theater in Fort Worth was built.
But the reason for this story wasn’t the brothers’ engineering, it was their birthday.
They were born 90 years ago on Wednesday, Oct. 12. However, soon after Carl emailed, his uncle Ken died following a stroke. When our crew met Rod Wernicke, he was noticeably at peace.
Rod Wernicke said before working together, he and Ken spent nearly 10 years apart. After reconnecting, they grew closer than they’d been in decades, something Rod Wernicke appreciates now more than ever.
“Yeah, I’m thankful,” Rod Wernicke said. “I wouldn’t have had some of those experiences.”
Their inventions were revolutionary, but the greatest thing they created ... were memories.
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