Foil: 13 Panel: 3 Column: 2 Line: 35

Wall of Honor Level:
Air and Space Friend

Honored by:

Ed started flying in Peoria, Illinois in the mid-twenties and quickly became a licensed pilot. This was the barnstorming era and Ed did his share at air shows and weekend ride barnstorming.

After becoming friends with Bill Piper, Ed started the first Piper Dealership west of the Pennsylvania border at Mount Holly Airport in Peoria, Illinois. Ed ferried numerous planes through the rugged mountains of Bradford, Pennsylvania back to the airport in Peoria. This is where many pilots learned to fly under his instruction, including Dwayne and Marion Cole of the famous Cole Brothers Flying Circus.

Oliver Parks befriended Ed in the mid-thirties and asked him come to work for him as a Parks Air College administrator and pilot instructor. There he became friends with many other great pilots, including Roscoe Turner. When WWII looked like a reality, Ed became Chief Pilot. It was during Ed's term as Chief Pilot that Parks became WWII's largest civil training school for military pilots. As personal pilot to Oliver Parks, Ed flew Oliver as well as General Jimmy Doolittle to several of the school's offshoot locations.

After WWII, Ed turned down a pilot job with American Airlines to pursue employment with the Civil Aeronautics Administration in Chicago. Upon retirement from the FAA (CAA had changed organization to FAA) in 1954, Ed became Airport Manager of Ross Field in Benton Harbor, Michigan.

In 1987 Ed and his wife. Hazel, retired to Florida.