Jim Johnson Awarded Wright Brothers Master Pilot Award

By Carmelo Turdo

Jim Johnson, a veteran pilot and A&P Mechanic based at Creve Coeur Airport, received the FAA's Wright Brothers Master Pilot Award April 30 at a ceremony held at his 75th birthday party. A crowd of family and friends gathered at the Creve Coeur Airport main terminal hangar to join the festivities and salute their fellow aviator. Johnson received the Charles Taylor Master Mechanic Award in 2016, having started his aviation career in aircraft maintenance. 

"I had Coke bottle glasses," Johnson told The Aero Experience after the ceremony. "I wanted to be in aviation, so if I can't fly, I want to work on them." He pursued the maintenance technician route first.

Originally from Texas, Jim Johnson started working early with a bicycle paper route at age 11 and he later had a job at a convenience store. One day he approached George Smith, the owner of George Smith Aircraft Service at the local airfield, and told him he wanted to learn to fly and work on aircraft. After rebuffing him at first, Smith then said that if he cleaned the bellies of his aircraft, he would consider taking him. The aircraft were quickly cleaned, and Johnson soon realized that his eyesight was good enough for him to take flying lessons. He accumulated his first six hours of flight training there while gaining experience in aircraft maintenance and restoration. Smith recommended that Johnson attend the Spartan School of Aeronautics in Tulsa, OK. Johnson did so, and graduated with an A&P Mechanic Certificate in December of 1966. He then started his 42-year career working for McDonnell Aircraft Company (later McDonnell Douglas and Boeing) in St. Louis in January of 1967.  

Upon arriving in St. Louis, Jim Johnson picked up his flight training in a Cessna 150 at Weiss Airport (the airport closed in 1994) and received his Private Pilot Certificate the following month. He was soon checked out in the Cessna 172 at the airport, an aircraft he later bought and sold before realizing it was that same one! Eventually he received his instrument rating but stopped short of getting his commercial rating for lack of interest in flying for hire. After fifty years of flying for enjoyment and working on a wide variety of "other people's airplanes," he is now content to fly his L-16 and Luscombe with his son, Jimmy, and finish his current Emeraude experimental aircraft project in time to fly it to EAA AirVenture Oshkosh in July. 

Jim and Jimmy Johnson can be found at Creve Coeur Airport among the variety of vintage aircraft that are on the field and in the Historic Aircraft Restoration Museum. Their expertise in vintage aircraft restoration and maintenance is evident through multiple EAA aircraft awards and aircraft service requests from around the country. Their aviation legacy will continue to be appreciated by future generations to come.

Here we feature our coverage of the awards ceremony and the party that followed.