About the publishers, Earl Down and Mimi Stauffer

Golden Age Aviation, Inc. is in business to make money but there is more to it than that. My interest in aviation, and in the stories of aviation, goes far beyond being a vehicle of profit. My wife, Mimi and I put our harts and souls into The Oklahoma Aviator and perhaps if you know a little more about me, you will gain a better understanding of what The Aviator is all about.

I grew up in Southern California and my parents did not fly or participate in aviation activities. The flying bug bit my twin brother, Ed, and me at a very young age and our parents "turned loose of the reins" when it came to our interest in airplanes. In the mid 1940s, this early aviation interest was nurtured by a neighbor who was a Lockheed design engineer. He and some Lockheed test pilots built four "midget" racing planes (called, Cosmic Winds) in his back yard and Ed and I were always hanging around. Only years later did we realize we were being tutored by legendary test pilots Tony LeVier and Herman (Fish) Salmon. In 1956, at age 14, our grandmother loaned Ed and me $80 each to take a 10-hour flying course with Valley Pilots Flying service at Van Nuys Airport. I can remember that first flight in the Aeronca Champ like it was yesterday.

Soloing on our 16th birthday and receiving our private pilot certificates on our 17th birthday, we both chose to make aviation a long-term venture. We knew that our "bottle bottom" glasses would rule out airline and military flying but we also knew that aviation was what we wanted. While in high school, we bought a 1941Taylorcraft L2 for $850 and started building flying time. We also started building a Whitman Tailwind but traded it, and the L2, for a 1943, Aeronca "Defender" before the Tailwind was completed. We rode our bikes to high school because buying a car was just not at the top of our list of priorities. By 1960, we both realized that the training business was the way to go because our corrected eyesight was not a limiting factor in this field of flying.

During the 1960s, both Ed and I continued to build flying time and add ratings as we moved on. A Piper Tripacer was next and was used to obtain our instrument ratings. Ed and I paralleled our aviation careers in many ways but not always at the same place or time.

I continued to add ratings and certificates and flew thousands of hours as a flight instructor and charter pilot during the tumultuous 1960s. In 1963 I joined the U.S. Air Force Reserve and served my active duty time in a C-119 unit based at March Air Force base in Riverside California. During those days I owned a Ryan PT-22, which made my active duty days rather unique because I kept the Ryan near the Base at Flaybob, Riverside airport. I was a ground-pounder that worked in the command post and many of the Air Force pilots knew I kept the Ryan nearby. Some of these pilots had never flown anything like the Ryan so we struck a deal-you fly my plane, I fly your plane. This led to a fair amount of C-119 flying time for me, without the unit commander knowing, of course. Returning from active duty in 1964, I was appointed a Designated Pilot Examiner and administered about 1000 check-rides over the next 5 years. During my run with several different companies during my "wild years" I even did a stint as a meteorological research pilot. I worked for a company named EG&G in a rainmaking/fog dissipation project at Los Angeles International airport. I flew a highly modified Beech Barron 56TC airplane, equipped with an internal hopper that could dispense 1000 pounds of cloud seeding material through a crop dusting rig on the bottom of the plane. I would fly this plane down to 100 feet AGL using the ILS, in zero visibility conditions, and then dump the "rain making dust" along the runway. We were able to clear the fog just enough a couple of times for me see the ground and realize what a bad job this was. That's when a ground job at an airline seemed like a really good idea. By the time I left EG&G, I had obtained my ATP certificate and logged thousands of flying hours.

TWA hired me as a ground instructor and I started out teaching DC-9 systems to pilots at the Kansas City Training Center. Later on, I moved to the Boeing 707 and then 727 airplanes. I earned my flight engineer certificate on the 707 and I must admit, I love that old airplane as much I do the Aeronca Champ.

The 707 was a classy airplane. I wasn't a line-crewmember but I was able to get some stick and rudder time in the big jets and I flew many training flights as the flight engineer (the wrench). My 23 years with this great company moved me into a whole new world of aviation but I always stayed active in small planes on my own time. I went to engineering schools, maintenance schools, management training and kept my IFR flying sharp in the best simulators around. As I progressed up the management ladder I also picked up writing and editing duties. In 1984 the training center in Kansas City closed and I was moved to the new Training Center in St. Louis as the Manager of all flight crew ground training. However, the yen to get back into small planes never died out and by 1991 I figured I had enough points to take early retirement. So, I started looking for a place to start a general aviation business. It was during my last year with TWA that my brother introduced me to Mimi Stauffer, a Chiropractor living near him in Burbank California. Ed and his wife had "set me up" and for a year I burned up the sky between St. Louis and Burbank "courting" my wife to be (those airlines employee passes can get you into a lot of trouble). After looking at several options, Mimi and I ended up reopening the abandoned facility at Cushing, Oklahoma in the fall of 1991. Golden Age Aviation started with fuel service and hangar rental, and had a flight school in operation by the middle of 1992. I added an A&P to my list of FAA certificates and opened a maintenance shop to complete our little operation.

This is when I first met Joe Cunningham and Mary Kelly, founders of The Aviator. They showed me what Oklahoma aviation is all about and I made new friends almost daily. Dr. Mimi re-started her Chiropractic practice in Cushing and we became part of the community. As my facility lease with the City of Cushing was nearing its end I decide I needed to move my energy in another direction. So, we closed the FBO part of the business in 1997 and, among other ventures, I started getting serious about my desire to make a new career of aviation writing. In 1999 I started writing for Flight Training magazine and in May of 2003, EAA asked me to be part of their journalistic team. Most recently, I collaborated with author Dan Ramsey to write a book titled, "The Complete Idiot's Guide to Sport Flying," released by Apha Press in February, 2005. Taking over The Oklahoma Aviator is like putting the cherry on top of the ice cream Sundae.

In March of 2005, I was accepted by the FAA to become a Sport pilot designated flight examiner. After completing the FAA training course, I was approved to administer sport pilot and sport pilot flight instructor practical tests.

So, there you are, and here I am. I may be the publisher of The Aviator but the paper actually belongs to you, the advertisers and my loyal readers. I hope you now know me a little better and I want to know you better. The Aviator started as aviation newspaper about Oklahoma Aviation. It will continue along this path but will also provide interesting stories based in aviation that inform and uplift our readers. The Aviator and Oklahoma aviation will grow together.