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Wall of Honor Level:
Air and Space Friend

Honored by:
Ms. Sharon Kavanagh

Flight Instructor, Airplane & Instrument Ground Instructor, Link Trainer Operator
Total time: 12,000 hours Actual instrument: 1,500 hours
Owned on small airplane and 50% interest in two others.
One life saving parachute jump from uncontrollable, spinning in primary training plane. No passenger injuries or incidents in 30-year career.
Bob lived on an Iowa farm to age 20, but by age 10 he knew he wanted to be a pilot, not a farmer. After two years of college he joined the Navy as a Seaman “Third Class”, completed Aviation Machinist School and worked his way into Cadet flight training at Jacksonville, Florida.
After two years instructing primary flight students at St. Louis, he was, by his request, ordered to NATS (Naval Air Transport Service), which operated just like commercial airlines. A year on schedule from San Diego to New York with many intermediate stops was followed by flying a Navy R4D (DC3) from Oakland to Sydney, Australia. There 18 months schedule form Sydney to Manila, Philippines flying DC3s and cargo version B24s. For a year after WWII ended it was San Diego to Attu and Point Barrow, Alaska flying DC3s and DC4s. After release from active duty in 1946, he remained with Naval Reserve and retired as a Lt. Commander.
For the next two years he flew and managed the aircraft maintenance for Mid West Airline, which served 28 cities in South Dakota, Nebraska and Iowa, including his home town of Creston, Iowa.
Then the last and perhaps most rewarding stage of his career was flying for Shell Oil Company and managing their total flight operation of 50 airplanes and helicopters of all sizes and very varied uses over the United States including Alaska, Canada, and the Gulf of Mexico for 17 years.