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Wall of Honor Level:
Air and Space Friend

Honored by:
Mr. Robert W. Marable

Mr. Marable was born August 4th, 1904, in Branch's Bridge, North Carolina. He passed away on December 14th, 1990, in Jupiter, Florida. He spent most of his pre teen and teenage years in Knoxville, Tennessee.

He began his working life as an automobile mechanic while horse drawn vehicles were still in common use. This led him to become interested in airplanes, since, as he put it, "there was no horse**** in the sky".

He became an aviation mechanic, ultimately working for every major U.S. airline during the 1930's; and was among the first to hold a Mechanic's License issued by the CAA, predecessor to the FAA, for both airframe and power plant.

His initial career experience began at small airports in the eastern U.S. on biplanes and early monoplanes. He would often work on airplanes flown by pilots who would later become notable in aviation, such as Roscoe Turner and Charles Lindbergh.

His commercial airline service included Dinner Key, Florida on Pan American flying boats; Tampa, Florida with the first scheduled commercial air service in the U.S.; and airports we now know as Chicago O'Hare and Atlanta Hartsfield-Jackson.

Prior to WW II he entered civil service with the U.S. Navy working at the Banana River Air Station, near Cocoa Beach, Florida; at Cherry Point, North Carolina; and at Jacksonville Naval Air Station (NAS/JAX) in Jacksonville, Florida, where he retired in 1960 as a supervisor in the aircraft inspection department.

On 9 September 1958 he became the first person at NAS/JAX to be awarded a patent, number 2850949, for an airframe sheet metal repair tool.

He was a member of the OX5 Aviation Pioneers.

He once changed the spark plugs in Amelia Earhart's red Lockheed Vega on display in the Air & Space Museum in Washington, D.C.

He was one of the many people who formed the anonymous foundation of commercial and military air travel that serves us today.