An engineer well-versed in figures and humor

Erwin Vogel regarded himself as a "celestial mechanic" amid aeronautical engineers. Mr. Vogel, who died at age 88 Oct. 21 of respiratory failure, was an engineer, but he never felt bound by rigid rules of behavior or the expectations of others.

An unconventional man with an unusual streak of humor, he would don the attire of Benjamin Franklin when visiting the University of Virginia, founded by Franklin's cohort, Thomas Jefferson. In his work-related engineering reports, he dropped poems in the prose, just to see if anyone was reading them.

He also shared his ideas with Washington Post readers during the past 37 years, when he lived in Gaithersburg.

"For the past 50 years, college education has been the same as the price of an automobile suitable to the parents who are sending their children to such an institution," he wrote in 1986. "For example: Ivy League school tuition was, and is, about the same as the price of a Cadillac (It may have been a Pierce Arrow or Packard, once). Liberal arts colleges of the second rank charge about as much as a Ford or Chevrolet, while the state university tuition corresponds to the cost of a three- or four-year-old secondhand vehicle. . . . Considering the greater availability of scholarships and loans, for both the poorer students as well as the upper-middle class, costs in real terms may well be much lower now than they were 50 years ago."

He also figured the cost of a gallon of gasoline to the minimum-wage earner, noting that in 1938, he could buy a gallon of gas for 30 minutes of work at his 25 cents-per-hour job.

"In today's market," he wrote in 1979, "a person employed at the minimum wage can buy a gallon of gas with only 15 to 18 minutes of labor. The product in terms of real economics has become cheaper!"

Mr. Vogel was born June 23, 1921, in Frankfurt-am-Main, Germany, and at age 12 moved to Brussels. At age 16, he immigrated to New York City but never completed his high school education, a fact of which he was proud. He nevertheless graduated from the Stevens Institute of Technology in Hoboken, N.J., and in 1944 received a master's degree there in mechanical engineering. He also studied electrical engineering at what is now the Polytechnic Institute of New York University.

He then worked for Republic Aviation Corp. in Bethpage, N.Y., later telling readers of The Post's letters to the editor in 1997 that he and his wife considered buying a home in Levittown when it was under construction on Long Island. But the homes were too small for their growing family, the couple concluded.

"So I suggested we buy two houses next to each other and connect them with a breezeway. Then we'd have two kitchens, two TV sets, kids in one house and peace in the other," he wrote. "And after the kids finally left the nest, we could sell one house. But my dear wife didn't agree, and we bought a single ranch house for somewhat more than the two Levitt houses would have cost."

In 1972, he moved to the Washington area and began working for what was then Fairchild Space Industries in Germantown. His specialty was guidance and control of unmanned satellites. He retired in 1991.

Libertarian in his politics, he ran unsuccessfully for the Maryland House in 1978, losing to Democrat Jerry Hyatt.

He was co-founder of the Seneca Valley Unitarian Universalist Fellowship in Gaithersburg. He was also a longtime member of Schlaraffia, a worldwide German-speaking society dedicated to humor and friendship. In that brotherhood, he was known as "Olwel." He was also a member and study group leader of American University's Osher Lifelong Institute for Learning in Retirement. He died at Kingsway Arms Nursing Center in Schenectady, N.Y., where he moved two months ago.

His wife, Gabrielle Vogel, died in 1989.

Survivors include four children, Susan Neulist of Carrboro, N.C., Nancy Ginsburg of Schenectady, Alan Vogel of Trumansburg, N.Y., and Richard Vogel of Belmont, Mass.; nine grandchildren; and two great-grandchildren.