Born June 24, 1915, Edward joined the Air Force in 1940, flying B-24 bombers in Italy during WW II. In 1943 he ran an Air Ambulance/Aerial Photography business in Denver, CO. From 1949 to 1951 he flew for the Flying Tiger Freight Lines from Los Angles to Tokyo. From 1951 to 1965 Edward worked as a Flight Test Engineer for North American Aviation, working on the Nautilus Submarine, the X-l and X-2 aircraft, and the Minute Man Missile project. In the 1960's he was involved with bringing commercial aviation to the Orange County Airport. On February 19, 1974 Lt. Colonel Edward Lowell Van Allen was lost at sea when the Cessna 182 he was piloting went down just short of Hawaii. His legacy lives on in his three children Art, Mike, and Patti.