AOPA Pilot Magazine - March 2022 - 42

BRIEFING
EVENTS /
AV I AT ION HISTORY /
Honoring his legacy
Aviation inspiration award named for
Brig. Gen. McGee
AOPA HONORS THE life and legacy of Brig. Gen. Charles McGee
through its annual Brigadier General Charles E. McGee Aviation
Inspiration Award. The honor is bestowed on the aviator who best
lives up to the ideals of McGee and pays it forward for generations
to come. McGee, a member of the famed Tuskegee Airmen and an
American hero, died January 16 at his home in Bethesda, Maryland.
He was 102 years old.
The inaugural 2020 McGee award was presented to the general
himself during a virtual ceremony (held virtually because of the
COVID-19 pandemic) in February
2021. U.S. Air Force Lt. Col. Kenyatta
(Keny) Ruffin, an F-16 pilot and
commander of the 71st Operations
Support Squadron, received the second
annual award in 2021.
This year's winner is Glenn
Gonzales, a former U.S. Air Force
fighter pilot who developed Jet
It, an aircraft ownership company
(gojetit.com). The McGee award
will be presented to Gonzales during
the annual Robert " Bob " Hoover
Awards ceremony in Washington,
D.C., on March 23.
Who first tested the
airframe parachute?
Cirrus test pilot took the risks
BY IAN J. TWOMBLY
A D VA NC E S I N AV I A -
T I ON are not without
risks. Even with modern
design tools and
proven and strict procedures,
things can and do
go wrong. Such was the
case for Cirrus when it
was designing the SR20
in the late 1990s.
The credit for the
idea of the whole airframe
parachute that
Cirrus calls CAPS genGlenn
Gonzales (above); Brig.
Gen. Charles McGee (below).
erally goes to Alan Klapmeier, who insisted on its inclusion
after surviving a midair collision earlier in his flying career.
And Ballistic Recovery Systems gets the credit for designing
and manufacturing the system. But Scott D. Anderson
took the risks.
Anderson grew up in Duluth, attended the University
of Minnesota and Stanford, spent a stint in Europe playing
professional football, and returned home to fly F-16s for
the Air National Guard. As one of two key Cirrus test pilots,
Anderson flew all seven of the company's CAPS deployment
tests during the certification trials, each successful.
Tragically, Anderson died in an accident while testing
a new aileron design in the company's first production
airplane, which unfortunately didn't yet have a parachute
installed. Soon into the flight he radioed Duluth's tower to
say he was having an issue, declared an emergency a few
miles from the airport, and crashed shy of the runway. It was
March 23, 1999, six months after the aircraft's certification.
Anderson was 33 years old.
Since his passing, Anderson has been inducted into the
Minnesota Aviation Hall of Fame, and his family administers
the Scott D. Anderson Leadership Foundation, a program
that takes kids from Duluth and provides them leadership
training through a summer study program.
So, while the companies may get the credit for the idea,
every time a CAPS is deployed and a life saved, those pilots
and passengers can thank the person who took the risks to
make it possible. ian.twombly@aopa.org
42
AOPA PILOT / March 2022
http://www.gojetit.com
AOPA Pilot Magazine - March 2022

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