Rogers pilot-examiner pioneer among new Aviation Hall of Fame honorees

Gwen Blue
Gwen Blue

The Federal Aviation Administration invited Gwen Batie Blue nearly 40 years ago to become a designated pilot examiner, an acknowledgment of her skill as a flier.

Designated pilot examiners are contracted by the federal agency to test the knowledge and practical expertise of fliers, beginning with their private pilot's licenses and ranging up to air transport pilot licenses. They also sign off on pilots for different ratings allowing them, for example, to pilot multiengine aircraft or fly in poor weather relying on only instruments.

The then-39-year-old Rogers mother of two went to Oklahoma City for training and met her classmates: 15 men. Not all of them were ready to accept a woman in their ranks, even in 1979.

"I don't think women should fly," one of them said.

Blue initially said nothing, but later she sought to break the ice, remarking: "If we got all the women in the air, look how safe the roads would be."

Her self-deprecation did the trick, lightening the mood.

Blue went on to become the first female designated flight examiner in Arkansas and amassed 15,000 hours in the air before she quit flying eight years ago.

On Nov. 8, 45 years to the day she earned her private pilot license, she will be one of four inductees into the Arkansas Aviation Hall of Fame.

Her fellow hall of fame entrants are:

• Jerry Robinson, the first chairman and director of the Department of Aviation at Henderson State University in Arkadelphia. The school is the state's only four-year institution of higher education that offers degrees in aviation.

• The late Cornelius Robinson Coffey, a Newport native who was the first black person to establish an aeronautical school in the United States.

• The late Ernest Ambort, a Little Rock native who was a World War II fighter ace and flew with the Arkansas Air National Guard before seeing combat again in the Korean War.

This year's honorees will join 104 previous inductees who include four women. The Arkansas Aviation Hall of Fame is an arm of the Arkansas Aviation Historical Society. The society's board selects the candidates for induction based on the significance of their contributions to aviation. Proceeds from the ceremony are used to fund scholarships for aviation students at Henderson State University and Ozarka College in Melbourne.

Blue, now 71, said she had no aspirations other than becoming a wife and a mother while growing up in Rogers. She had an infant son when her husband decided to learn to fly. Blue said she didn't want to stay at home while her husband was up in the air. Her husband's instructor thought a good solution would be for Blue to take a spin in a small aircraft.

She did, and she was hooked. She got her private pilot's license in 1973. By 1979, she had a commercial private pilot's license, which allowed her to teach others how to fly. That eventually led to her buying a small aircraft and opening a flight school at what is now Rogers Executive Airport Carter Field.

The flight school, called Gwen Batie Flight School, had an FAA Part 61 certificate. Part 61 flight schools are less structured than Part 141 flight schools. The former allowed people to work at their own pace, though students in both schools must meet the same requirements for pilot training and certification.

A Part 61 flight school allowed Blue to set her own hours, which she said made it a good business for her.

"It was a neat job for a mom to have," Blue said. "I could take off and go to kids' stuff."

The school also allowed her to essentially fly for free. The students sitting in the left seat of her aircraft would pay for the aircraft any time it was in the air. Blue sat in the right seat as the instructor.

Blue said she was thrilled when the FAA asked her to become a flight examiner.

"I made a lot more money as an examiner than I did as a flight instructor," she said.

She eventually was qualified as a flight examiner on twin-engine aircraft weighing less than 12,500 pounds. About all she lacked was a rating to fly jets. She held an air transportation pilot license, which would have allowed her to fly for airlines.

Take Off, a book that looks back at some of the "aviation anecdotes" of her career, is scheduled to be published early next year.

Blue remains in rare company. The FAA has 11 designated flight examiners with Arkansas addresses, according to an agency spokesman. None are female, he said.

Robinson had a varied career in aviation before he turned to flying a desk. He had stints as a missionary pilot in Brazil; an instructor for Flight Safety, an advanced flight training company that provided training for business and regional jet manufacturers; and a demonstration pilot for the Cessna Aircraft Co., now known as Textron.

He also was a pilot in the Army, flying planes and helicopters. He rose to the rank of colonel in the Army Reserve before retiring and moving to Arkadelphia to head Henderson's Department of Aviation in 1987.

Coffey was born in Newport on Sept. 6, 1903, the same year of the Wright Brothers' first powered flight. He taught himself to fly because commercial flying schools wouldn't accept black applicants.

He also obtained an aviation mechanics license before opening his own aeronautical school in 1938 at the former Harlem Field in Chicago. Among the estimated 1,000 students who went through the school by the time World War II ended in 1945 were several Tuskegee Airmen, the black Army Air Corps pilots who flew fighter missions over Europe.

Coffey also designed a carburetor heater to prevent engine icing and allow aircraft to fly in all types of weather. He died in 1994 in Chicago at the age of 90.

Ambort enrolled in the Aviation Cadet Program of the Army Air Corps on Sept. 17, 1942. He was commissioned as a second lieutenant and received his pilot wings Jan. 7, 1944, at Williams Field in Arizona.

He was credited with destroying five enemy aircraft in combat and damaging another before returning home in September 1945. His achievement earned him a Distinguished Flying Cross.

He left active duty in March 1946 and served with the 154th Fighter Squadron of the Arkansas Air National Guard before he was re-activated during the Korean War.

Ambort died in 1981. He is buried at Little Rock National Cemetery.

NW News on 10/22/2018

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