John
L. Parish Sr. of Tullahoma was honored recently by the Federal Aviation
Administration with the Wright Brothers’ Master Pilot Award for
dedicated service in aviation safety. The award is given to pilots who
are accident and violation free for 50 years. Parish is founder of the
Beechcraft Heritage Museum in Tullahoma and is currently the museum’s
chairman of the board. Parish displays the plaque while standing in
front of his Beechcraft King Air.
–Photo by Chris Barstad
John L. Parish Sr., business executive, pilot and founder of the Beechcraft Heritage Museum in Tullahoma, has received the Wright Brothers Master Pilot Award from the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) for having over 50 consecutive years of dedicated service in aviation safety.
As a result of the award, Parish received a certificate and lapel pin, and his name and location are listed on the FAA’s “Roll of Honor.”
As in most of his endeavors, Parish’s long-term excellence as a pilot stems from a passion for flying since early childhood.
“The award is really just recognition of pilots who have had 50 years with no accidents or incidents with their license,” Parish said.
“I’ve always loved flying, ever since I was a kid growing up in Harton Heights during World War II. I loved watching the B-24s and other military aircraft at Northern Field.
“Eventually, Lee Soesbe became my aviation mentor, and I started taking lessons from Bob Bomar in Shelbyville while I was at Vanderbilt, back when Bomar Field was just a grass strip.”
In the 1970s, Parish said he became interested in Beech products, which he still considers one of the highest- quality aircraft manufacturers in the world.
After hosting numerous fly-ins for other aviation enthusiasts, including those that featured the classic “Staggerwing” and other vintage aircraft models, Parish eventually founded the Beechcraft Heritage Museum off the Old Shelbyville Highway to honor the history of these finely crafted planes.
“We contacted Mrs. (Olive) Beech about the museum initially and she frowned on it at first,” he said, “but later she became very supportive.”
Parish added that Mrs. Beech was known as the “brains” behind the business operation of the Beech Corporation, founded in 1932, and was the first woman named to the Fortune Magazine Hall of Fame.
In addition to his private and commercial flying licenses, Parish is certified for Instrument Flight Rules (IFR) for night-time and other low-visibility flying as well as for float-planes, which land on water.
“I used to love flying the King Air planes, but now I mostly enjoy flying my float plane up in Minnesota and Canada,” he said.
- Source: http://www.tullahomanews.com
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