Career

-Gerald Bull had an immense career filled with ups and downs, due to time restraints I will only give a rough outline of some of his more ‘important’ work (also I don’t quite understand a lot of what he did…)

After finishing his PhD Gerald went to work for CARDE full time. At the time they were doing research with supersonic flight – which is a rate of travel of an object that is greater than the speed of sound (at least 1,236 km/h). Gerald offered up ideas to help with their projects, mainly building a wind tunnel to help with their data collecting and samples, he’s project was rejected as it would ‘cost too much money’ – a phrase Gerald would become all too familiar with during his career. While Gerald was still working at CARDE, in 1953, he met his future wife Noemi. They married in 1954, and had two sons between 1955 and 1956. Deciding his wind tunnel was too important to let go by the wayside Gerald recruited some workers from Laval University and build one similar to the one he had produced during his time at the University of Toronto. This tunnel was capable of speeds up to Mach 4 (4,944 km/h) and only cost him $6,000 to produce, as the tunnel was made from mostly scrap metal. Around this time (1956) Gerald started to receive some media attention for his work, unfortunately this coincided with CARDE losing a major piece of its funding. Gerald was very vocal about these events saying the Liberal government was a bunch of "second-rate lawyers and jumped-up real-estate salesmen". Soon after Gerald set to working on the Avro Arrow – a famous Canadian interceptor aircraft capable of Mach 2 (2,472 km/h) – but this projected was also cancelled. The rest of his time at CARDE Gerald worked on infrared detection and anti-ballistic missile systems. After a run in with his direct supervisor Gerald got up and left CARDE handing in his resignation letter that same day.

He re-joined the academic life and went to teaching at McGill University in Montreal and bought a 4,000 acre property on the Quebec/Vermont border called Highwater Station, donated it to McGill and set up a ballistics testing lab there and set to building his super gun – it is just as it sounds a very large gun. While working at McGill he also started work on a project called High Altitude Research Program, or HARP.  He began testing with HARP in the Barbados, as Highwater Station was too small for his firing needs, creating 300 jobs for locals in the Barbados. His original tests there were a stepping stone to what Geralds dream was for his super gun, a gun-launched rocket that could reach outer space. His projects were funded under the guise that it would be a low cost way for Canada to enter the space-lunch business; he secured three years’ worth of funding for him and his team. Two years into the project they successfully fired a projectile 180 km – which still stands as a record to this day. When it was clear to the government that they would not reach their target within the three years the funding was cut after only two years.

With all of these funding cuts Gerald moved back to Highwater and set up his own company, the Space Research Corporation and became an international artillery consultant. He started on jobs for both the US and Canadian militaries. He turned his attentions from his super guns and firing satellites into space to the more lucrative trade of weapons manufacturing and innovation. His first success was the GC-45 howitzer that could fire accurately within 10 m over 30 km, these distances was far greater than those around at the time.

Rough time line of events: 1951-1980