Oliver Parks

Male, Deceased Person

1899 – 1985

87

Who was Oliver Parks?

Oliver L. "Lafe" Parks was a pioneer in the fields of pilot training and aviation studies in the early decades of aviation.

Parks' career started as a Chevrolet salesman at the Gravois Motor corporation in St. Louis. Combining his sales and piloting skills, Parks flew an Standard J with the Gravois Motor logo painted on the fuselage and wings.

A friend of Charles Lindbergh, Parks founded the Parks Air College in 1927 and quickly established higher standards for the amount and quality of training that student pilots were required to complete to earn their commercial pilot’s certification. In the late 1930s, with war brewing again in Europe and no air force in existence, Parks also convinced the Air Corps that the training program at his college could adequately prepare military pilots for combat missions. In October 1938, General Hap Arnold brought in the top three aviation school representatives to request they establish an unfunded startup of Civilian Pilot Training Program schools at their own risk. These were Oliver Parks of Parks Air College, C. C. Moseley of the Curtiss-Wright Technical Institute, and Theopholis Lee of the Boeing School of Aeronautics; all agreed. In 1939, Oliver Parks was brought to Alabama to set up a Civilian Pilot Training Program for the University of Alabama at Van de Graaff Field. In 1940, he leased all of Curtiss-Steinberg Airport, which was renamed Curtiss-Park Airport, for his school. By the end of World War II, more than 37,000 cadets had received their primary flight instruction at a Parks institution.

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Born
Jun 10, 1899
Nationality
  • United States of America
Died
Feb 28, 1985

Submitted
on July 23, 2013

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