The Experimental Aircraft Association (EAA) has announced that it will induct five new members into the Sport Aviation Halls of Fame for 2023. Each individual was selected for one of the organization’s five Halls of Fame representing homebuilders, ultralights, the International Aerobatic Club, the Vintage Aircraft Association and EAA Warbirds of America. A ceremony honoring the Sport Aviation Halls of Fame 2023 class is scheduled to take place on Nov. 9, 2023, at the EAA Aviation Museum in Oshkosh, Wisconsin.
“The EAA Sport Aviation Halls of Fame were established to honor the outstanding achievements of men and women in aviation who share the spirit of EAA and its community,” EAA said. “Those inducted into the halls of fame are selected by their peers for myriad contributions made to their respective areas of aviation.”
The Sport Aviation Halls of Fame Class of 2023 includes Neal Loving, an aircraft designer, homebuilder and aerospace engineer who designed the WR-1 midget racer, who will be inducted into the EAA Homebuilders Hall of Fame. He is joined by 1978 IAC Unlimited category National Champion Lew Shattuck, who will enter the International Aerobatic Club Hall of Fame and warbird restorer Charles “Chuck” Greenhill, who will join the Warbirds of America Hall of Fame. Beechcraft Heritage Museum co-founder John Parish Sr. will be inducted into the Vintage Aircraft Association Hall of Fame with M-Squared Aircraft President Paul Mather entering the EAA Ultralights Hall of Fame.
Any vintage airplane lovers out there who are in the vicinity of Nashville / Tullahoma, TN on I-24 owe it to themselves to go see the Beechcraft Heritage Museum … an awesome collection of Beech airplanes and in a setting that — itself — takes one’s breath away. I stopped there a few years ago but found it closed; somehow, I got through their gate that someone left open. I was looking through the windows and slobbering when John Parish Sr. came up to our car to ask my wife what was going on. When he heard I was rabid about airplanes, he opened the Museum just for us. (I guess his choices were let me in OR … wash the windows). I paid him back by bringing an item of Beech memorabilia back as a donation.
Great guy and I’d say he’s very deserving of this recognition.