Gene Wolff

I joined EAA in 1982, and am a charter member of Chapter 765.

My first airplane ride happened at the Garden County fairgrounds in Lewellen, Nebraska, in 1937 when I was four years old.  When I was five, my dad bought an American Eagle bi-plane, but, since he was teaching himself to fly, I never got a ride.  In 1947 he bought a Cessna 140 which we flew frequently over the trackless sand hills of northern Nebraska.  Nineteen forty-nine through 1950 I participated in Civil Air Patrol.  Our commander, Hershel Amrine, purchased a surplus J-3 Grasshopper still in the shipping crate, in Texas.  The crate contained material to assemble the complete aircraft including the engine.  Once we completed the aircraft, we got to fly it.  It never occurred to me to apply for a license.  That didn?t come until September of 1973.  I purchased an American Yankee AA-1-A.  It was good around the patch as well as cross country from Arizona to Montana, then down across Wyoming, through Colorado, New Mexico, and back to Arizona.  Many times we flew to Colorado, New Mexico, and Nebraska.  It was a great little plane, but I had always wanted to build.  After seven years of construction, I have a beautiful RV-8.  Flying to Ohio and Illinois is on my bucket list. 

I worked construction every summer from the sixth grade through high school, and rebuilt diesel engines on Saturdays.  This provided me with a knowledge of mechanics.  However, six years of college and a Master?s Arts degree in English did not prepare me for the other requirements for building an aircraft.  A friend, Wayne Learn, taught me riveting, while two IA?s, Bob Loose and Gene Simpson advised on request.  Often, Loose would answer my questions by pointing at AC 43.13-1A-2A, very valuable FAA publication.  The painting was accomplished by Strobe?s located on the field in Kingman.

Nebraska is my home state. I graduated from Arapahoe H.S., in 1952.  Korea was my war experienced on the signal bridge of the U.S.S. Buck, DD-761.  I earned a Bachelor?s degree from Nebraska State College in Kearney, Nebraska, with a major in English and a minor in German.  Upon graduation, I obtained employment in Cozad, Nebraska, at Monroe Auto Equipment, serving as a troubleshooting foreman manufacturing shock absorbers.  Grand Island Public Schools offered a contract to teach which I accepted, and taught there for four years before relocating in Kingman.  For 25 more years I taught English successfully.