Fred Stadler

Like many aviation enthusiasts, Stadler started attending EAA AirVenture. Embracing the Experimental Aircraft Association’s spirit, he began volunteering year-round in Oshkosh, eventually buying a second residence there and ultimately making it his home upon retiring from IBM. Working the Oshkosh flight line gave him ideas for improving arrival and departure procedures.

“I wanted to bring a pilot’s perspective,” he said, and sent suggestions up the line. Over time his responsibilities increased, and he was appointed chair of the group charged with crafting the flight procedures document. “I’m sort of EAA’s representative to the FAA,” he says of his role.

During AirVenture Stadler serves as co-chairman for flight line operations. “That’s tremendous fun,” he says. “One time we had a U–2 taxiing out and realized that the wing tip was going to run into taxiway lights. I didn’t know what else to do, so I went up and picked the wing tip up. I didn’t know if I was allowed to do that, but…”

Stadler prefers to hang out where the airplanes are. At EAA headquarters, that means Pioneer Airport (WS17) most of the year. He became attached to EAA’s 1929 Travel Air E-4000 and 1927 Swallow and has given 5,000 people open-cockpit biplane flights.

Out of all the flying he has done, nothing is as important to him as the hours flying more than 10,600 Young Eagles, most of them individually in EAA’s GlaStars. No one has come close to flying so many kids (the next highest total is 7,600). “You only have one first flight experience of your own, but flying Young Eagles lets a pilot share the fresh excitement of aviation many times through the eyes of young people,” Stadler says. “It’s such a privilege to be next to a young person when they see their world in a different way.”