Evelyn Bryan Johnson

Who was Evelyn Bryan Johnson?

Evelyn Stone Bryan Johnson, nicknamed “Mama Bird”, was the female pilot with the most number of flying hours in the world. She was a colonel in the Civil Air Patrol and a founding member of the Morristown, Tennessee Civil Air Patrol squadron.

Johnson was born Evelyn Stone in Corbin, Kentucky. She was a graduate of Tennessee Wesleyan College. As a young woman, she taught school in Etowah, Tennessee. Later she attended the University of Tennessee.

She married Wyatt Jennings "W.J." Bryan and learned to fly in 1944, while he was serving in the Army Air Corps and the couple was living in Jefferson City, Tennessee. She logged 57,635.4 flying hours, and was the oldest flight instructor in the world. She trained more pilots and gave more FAA exams than any other pilot. She was named in the Guinness Book of World Records as having the most flying hours of any woman and the most of any living person. Johnson was inducted into the Women in Aviation Pioneers Hall of Fame, the Tennessee and Kentucky aviation halls of fame and others. She was awarded a bronze Carnegie Medal for rescuing a helicopter pilot after he crashed.

Johnson became manager of the Moore-Murrell Airport in Morristown, Tennessee, in 1953. She flew into her 90s despite developing eyesight problems and only quit at 96 after a car accident on September 10, 2006 resulted in her undergoing a leg amputation. Even after that, she continued to manage the airport.