It’s fun to see an old friend get well-deserved recognition for achievement, and I had that pleasure at NBAA’s 2007 Annual Meeting and Convention in Atlanta. Pat Epps, founder and head of Epps Aviation, PDK Atlanta, is a friend from way back in 1969, when I was one of his company’s “problem” students.
He has since hired me as a speaker, bought my books, and otherwise supported my career for more than 40 years. He has also introduced me to his huge family of five brothers and three sisters, including brother George, whose Fourth of July bar-b-que I have attended for most of the last 30 years.
Pat, the NBAA press release explains, “having demonstrated a long, continuous history of volunteer service to aviation,” received the 2007 John P. “Jack” Doswell Award. He deserved it, and then some.
The press release omits one important characteristic of Pat, and seemingly every other Epps: He was born with a great appreciation of humor and mischief.
Years ago, I wrote a column about the late Ed Long being the highest-time pilot in world history. Pat warned me that Evelyn Johnson of Tennessee had more hours than Ed. Panicked, I called Evelyn. She laughed and said she was several thousand hours short of Ed’s flying time. I reported to Pat and he laughed out loud. Seems he just thought it would be fun to see me sweat. (Evelyn, by the way, is the highest-time pilot now alive and a member of the National Aviation Hall of Fame.)
Mike Pickett, formerly Pat Epps’ long-time aircraft sales manager, tells a great “Pat” story. During an NBAA show, Mike, Pat and another Epps employee were walking down a Kansas City sidewalk and noticed a sign reading, “Kansas City Athletic Club — Members Only.” Pat suggested that they check it out. Mike, somewhat horrified, pointed out the no-member notice. Well, said Pat, maybe we’ll join. They went inside — Pat marching confidently, the rest trailing sheepishly behind.
It was a fine and dignified club, with old gentlemen sitting in huge chairs reading newspapers. Pat marched right up to one of them and asked, “Excuse me, sir. Are you a member of this club?” The old boy defensively answered, “No sir, I’m not, but Mr. Jones is, and I’m meeting him here.”
“That’s fine, sir,” Pat assured him, “I’m just checking. We get a lot of people just wandering in off the street, you know.”
Pat and old friend Richard Taylor once, for the fun of it, flew Pat’s aerobatic Bonanza to the magnetic north pole. Over the pole Pat, as Taylor described it, “rolled the Pole.” Then, being reluctant to leave the Pole rolled up, Pat ‘unrolled’ it with a roll in the opposite direction.
Mike Pickett also told me that Pat is the only person he’s ever seen fly a million-dollar aircraft into a major city, then hitchhike downtown. Seems Pat was irritated by the high price of a cab.
