CAPE PILOT TO BE HONORED FOR 50 YEARS OF FLYING

When Fred Schmucker was a teen-ager, he traded chores at a little airport in Canton, Ohio, for flying lessons.

"We had no paved runways at the airport," recalled Schmucker, 66, of Cape Girardeau. So he used the little tractor from the family farm to keep the runways mowed.

He was about 14 when he started taking lessons, but he only got lessons when he worked, so it took a while.

"Fifty years ago, at the tender age of 16, I flew solo for the first time," Schmucker said. He was 17 when he got his pilot's license.

Today at 1 p.m., friends and family will commemorate Schmucker's 50 winged years with a celebration at the Cape Girardeau Regional Airport restaurant.

A retired Lutheran minister, Schmucker said he has flown throughout much of the East Coast and Midwest for family trips. During the 1970s, he held an administrative position with the Illinois Conference of Churches and "flew all over Illinois" from his home in Cape Girardeau.

Schmucker now owns a Cessna 150, a two-seater airplane he keeps hangared at the Regional Airport.

In the past he also owned a Piper J-5, a three-seater, and a Piper Cherokee 140, a four-seater.

Schmucker is also licensed to fly gliders. And he is a member of the Experimental Aircraft Association, a national organization of men and women who enjoy building their own aircraft.

He is building a Pietenpole, a wood and fabric-covered airplane first built in 1929 by Bernie Pietenpole, he said.

When the first Pietenpoles were being built, many airplane enthusiasts were flew planes left over from World War I. Pietenpoles, which were powered by Model A automobile engines, were marketed to replace those airplanes, called Jennies.

"And people are still building them today," Schmucker said. "It's a very classic aircraft. I'm building it in my garage," he said, explaining it is the first airplane he has built.

Schmucker's son, Fred. Jr., is also a licensed pilot.

"When the children were small, and we could put three kids in the back seat, we'd go all kinds of places," Schmucker said.

His daughter, Elizabeth Schmucker, Southeast Missouri coordinator of the Missouri Mentoring Partnership, said Schmucker took the children on flights all the time.

"I was flying, I think, before I even knew what it was," she said.

She said she took flying lessons for a while, but hasn't earned her license. She hopes to continue toward it someday.

Schmucker returned in December from the Center for Evangelical Theology of the University of Klaipeda, Lithuania. He spent a term there as an instructor in pastoral care.

He said he hopes to return to Lithuania in the summer.

As part of today's celebration, a proclamation from Cape Girardeau Mayor Al Spradling III will be presented commemorating Schmucker's flight experience.