This week, aviation lost one it’s finest, Chuck O’Neil. I knew Chuck as the station chief for the Albany office of the Federal Aviation Administration (GADO). First and foremost, Chuck was a pilot who loved flying, and secondly was a respected government administrator. I got to know Chuck through my early work in the mid ’70s with a fledgling Adirondack Balloon Festival. In 1975, we moved the balloon festival from the local college to the airport, plus added an airshow to the billing. Using the airport and having an airshow added immensely to our organizational headaches. Chuck was my go-to-guy in clearing many of the regulatory hurdles for putting on this show, and many times later in my hot air ballooning career with some of the publicity stunts we were doing with balloons back in the late 70′s and early 80′s. The usual joke about the government and it’s employees is, “I’m from the government and I’m here to help”. Well, usually this makes people run the other way, especially when it’s a regulatory agency like the FAA, but for Chuck, he was one who was truly here to help. One of my favorite Chuck O’Neil stories, and there are many, was from when Chuck was working out of the Buffalo regional GADO office for the FAA in the early 70s when he got a request to do a certification flight for a student pilot for an early balloonist, Walt Thompson, who was in the southern tier of NY. Well, never having a request like this before and since nobody in the office knew anything about hot air balloons, Chuck contacted the eastern regional office at JFK on Long Island for guidance. They knew nothing and contacted the national. The guidance that Chuck ended up getting was, first, don’t get in the basket with him, stay on the ground. Have the student take off and land the balloon. and if he bounces more than 3 times, flunk him! Well, Chuck being Chuck would have none of that. He went on and got a rating to fly balloons himself from a guy named Bill Meadows who operated an early flight school down in North Carolina for hot air balloons. So Chuck became the FAA’s expert and spokesman for hot air balloon matters. Thanks for everything Chuck, you were a great friend and are truly missed.
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on Friday, July 2nd, 2010 at 11:56 am and is filed under Stuff.
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