RALPH CHARLES
Captain Ralph Charles, thought to be the world’s oldest active pilot until he stopped flying last year, died of pneumonia February 2 in Sommerset, Ohio. He was 103. He helped the Wright brothers build airplanes in 1919, earned his license in 1922, and barnstormed in the 1920s. Charles was also a captain at TWA and other airlines in the 1930s, and a Navy test pilot during World War II. He flew acceptance flights in Curtiss Helldivers and Seagulls from 1943 to 1945. Charles shared a hangar with Charles Lindbergh at one time, and the two remained friends. He stopped flying after WWII when his then-wife, Leona, insisted he was too old. He didn’t fly again for 50 years, but after Leona’s death he took it up again, buying an Aeronca Defender in 1995. Born in 1899, Charles lived in three centuries. His involvement in flying spanned 84 years of powered flight’s 100 years. Several years ago, he “flew” NASA’s Space Shuttle simulator after being invited to a Shuttle launch. In his last years, he flew the tandem two-seater alone.
ABBIE HADDAWAY
Abbie Dill Haddaway made her first solo flight in 1930 when she was 18. She died in Mobile, Alabama on February 5 at the age of 91. Haddaway was a native of Cleveland, Ohio, where she made a parachute jump at the age of 17 in order to have a good topic for a high school English class assignment. During the 1930s she did aerobatic performances at air shows, flying the OX5 Waco, Travel Air, Stearman, Great Lakes, and Gypsy Moth. She was an early member of the Ninety-Nines and helped form the Los Angeles Chapter, as well as the San Fernando Valley Chapter in 1952.
RICHARD NELSON
Richard Nelson, radio operator aboard “Enola Gay,” the B- 29 that dropped the first atomic bomb, died in Los Angeles on February 1. He was 77. Nelson was the youngest of the bomber’s 12-member crew on its historic mission over Hiroshima, Japan on August 6, 1945. It was a six-hour mission, some 2,000 miles from an island air base in the western Pacific. The 9,700 pound “Little Boy” bomb was dropped from about 33,000 feet. Nelson sent a coded message immediately after the bomb detonated. His message was forwarded to President Harry Truman. Historians say it read: “Results excellent.” A native of Moscow, Idaho, Nelson hoped to become a pilot when he joined the Army Air Force in 1943 but was transferred to radio school because of poor eyesight. He graduated near the top of his class and was selected for the super-secret 509th Composite Group. “Enola Gay” pilot General Paul W. Tibbets, navigator Theodore “Dutch” Van Kirk, and weaponeer Morris Jeppson are still alive.
ORVILLE TOSCH
Aviation has lost one of its more colorful characters. Orville Wilbur Tosch died January 9 of complications from a hip fracture. He was 85. Tosch began his aviation career in 1931 at the age of 13, when he sold tickets for a flying circus in South Dakota. He joined the circus when he was 15 as a pilot barnstormer performer. He later became a professional pilot and mechanic. Tosch literally worked from coast to coast, logging hours in Alaska, Florida, and all states in between. In his later years, his specialty was the restoration of rare aircraft. In 1998 the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) presented Tosch with the Master Mechanic Award. In 2002 he was inducted into the Washington Aviation Hall of Fame.
EVELYN TROUT
Evelyn Trout, 97, daredevil pilot of the 1920s and ’30s, died in February in La Jolla, California. She was the first woman to fly an all-night route. Trout was the last surviving member of the inaugural All-Women’s Transcontinental Air Race, from Santa Monica, California to Cleveland, Ohio, in 1929 – an event Will Rogers dubbed “the Powder Puff Derby.”
