Foil: 17 Panel: 3 Column: 2 Line: 100

Wall of Honor Level:
Air and Space Friend

Honored by:
Ms. Robin Foster Carroll

Henry Starr Foster's long association with aviation began in the late 1920s. A friend, Bud Winder, learned to fly and bought a Waco OX-5 water-cooled airplane. He started teaching Henry and his friends to fly and they formed the Valparaiso Aero Club and bought a glider. Henry and his friends earned flying lessons by "selling tickets for rides, washing airplanes and greasing the rocker action on that old OX-5," helping at weekend air shows and repairing airplanes. Henry first soloed in the glider towed behind a car on a 500-foot rope.

When asked about flying, he said, "There was a thrill there. It was something everybody looked up to. You wore a helmet and goggles; I even had boots and knicker-laced pants like Roscoe Turner. There was something you were doing that everybody didn't do."

Henry earned his amateur rating in 1934, airline transport pilot license in 1937 and private license in 1938. Soon afterward he and another friend in the Aero Club, Olie Sundelin, (with financial help from Bud Winder) ordered plans and built a monocoupe plane in Henry's garage. They knew about engines from working on them at the airfield and wings from stretching fabric and gluing for repair. Henry earned his flight instructor rating in 1939 and advanced aerobatic rating in 1940. The aerobatic rating included "loops, fast rolls, slow rolls, lazy eights - just general run of acrobatics."

In air shows, his friend "Bud flew the WACO, Bill the Travelair, and Henry flew the monocoupe - it was a high winger while the other two were biplanes." Henry recalled, "I flew on the outside... we did wingovers, loops, etc., nothing spectacular like rolls." For the air show, "we put a propeller on the monocoupe that was real thin and rattled like a PT-13!" We always put on that crazy flying act, dragging the wing on the ground, barely missing a fence and crazy up and down like the thing was out of control. That was really spectacular for the crowd; they thought that was something! When Bud staggered out there, they thought somebody had really stolen the plane." "We'd usually have a guy dressed up like a farmer. That was kind of stupid, really, but people liked it. Another thing we did was pick up a handkerchief on the ground with the wing tip of the Cub." Other things they did included the "bomb-tossing act" in which the pilot drops a bag of flour with a moving car as the target. Sometimes, Henry flew the plane, while Ollie walked on the wings of the WACO. Every year, he and his friends would open the football season for Valparaiso University. "We got rolls of streamers and tied them to the wing struts and tail. We also tied streamers to a football. At a predetermined time, we would fly low over the football field and drop the ball. That opened the season."

Henry logged over 12,000 miles flying. Among his friends, Henry included many of aviation's early pioneers such as Freddie Lund, Roscoe Turner, Mike Murphy, Joe Mackey and later Bevo Howard.

Henry Starr Foster was born 19 July 1910 in Valparaiso, Indiana and was the son of Herschel Victor Foster and Millie Jane Fairchild Foster. He received a diploma from the Indiana Common School in 1925, when he was only 14 years old, and went on to attend Central High School in Valparaiso. Henry and Dorothy Grace Trahan were married 2 January 1927. A son Robert Allen was born in April 1928. Their second son, Richard Henry, was born in July 1931. Henry's first job was as a pressman's helper with Wade and Wise Printing Company and he supplemented his income by firing furnaces at Valparaiso University. In 1941 Henry left the printing business and became self-employed as Airport Manager at Urschel Field in Valparaiso, operated an Aviation School, was pilot for cross-country charter trips, had aircraft and mechanical duties and was responsible for all office administration and procedures.

This family enterprise was short lived, for Henry received a call to become a flight instructor for the 312th Army Air Corps Flying Training Detachment at Grinder Field, Pine Bluff, Arkansas. Here his duties included determining the potential of cadets as officer material. He worked with flight instructors in an indoctrination course on Advanced Aerobatic Maneuvers. He was recommended for a commission as an officer in the US Air Force, which he declined. Henry was promoted to supervisor of Flight Training with responsibility for 15 flight instructors. From here, he received a call from the Civil Aeronautics Board which lead to a thirty year career in the CAA/FAA with designations from Flight Operations Inspector, to Administrator of the Regional Office of the Federal Aviation Administration in Memphis, TN, to Administrator of the Safety Division in Atlanta, GA, and other assignments in Charlotte, NC; Birmingham, AL, Columbia, SC; Little Rock, AR; and Oklahoma City, OK. He retired in 1972 to Otto, NC and took up golfing. He died on Christmas Day 1984 after a two-year battle with cancer. He is buried beside Dorothy in Memorial Park in Memphis, TN.

Henry Foster was the grandfather of Robin Foster Carroll, who submitted this profile. We affectionately called him "Pops." She does not remember him talking much about his flying days, but remembers his genuine laugh, positive attitude, and big smile. (With information from Robert Foster, Robin's father and Henry's son, and a family history compiled by Ruth Sevier Foster, Robin's mother.)