Dépêches

Renowned Pilot Clay Lacy to Receive 2011 Howard Hughes Memorial Award from the Aero Club of Southern California

Dépèche transmise le 15 septembre 2011 par Business Wire

LOS ANGELES--(BUSINESS WIRE)--The Aero Club of Southern California will honor Clay Lacy, a world-renowned pilot with over 50,000 hours of flying time, with its 2011 Howard Hughes Memorial Award, according to ACSC president Nissen Davis.

“to increase public awareness of aviation in the United States and around the world.”

The award will be presented by Bob Hoover, another legendary pilot and recipient of the 2009 Hughes Award, at a banquet at the Jonathan Club, Los Angeles on February 8, 2012.

Lacy is the 33^rd recipient of the award whose previous honorees include Jack Northrop, Jimmy Doolittle, Neil Armstrong, Chuck Yeager and Simon Ramo.

Clay’s lifetime in aviation has included experience as an Air Force and Air National Guard fighter pilot, test pilot on several aircraft including the Pregnant Guppy which carried the Apollo spacecraft’s boosters, United Airlines pilot retiring with Number One seniority, and winner of the National Air Races Unlimited Class at Reno.

He set an around the world speed record in 1988, flying a Boeing 747-SP, and raising $530,000 for children’s charities in the process.

Clay is also a movie pilot whose many credits include Top Gun, Flight of the Intruder and The Great Santini. He is a member of the Directors Guild of America and the Screen Actors Guild. He is chairman of Clay Lacy Aviation, which he founded in 1968. It operates more than 70 aircraft and is one of America’s largest charter management companies.

The Clay Lacy Foundation, in association with the EAA Aviation Foundation, sponsors a professional pilot scholarship program at the University of North Dakota’s John D. Odegard School of Aerospace Science.

Lacy will receive a medallion made from silver from the Hughes mines in Nevada that features Hughes image and his major aviation and space accomplishments.

A commemorative sculpture bearing the names of award recipients is on permanent display at the Flight Path Learning Center and Museum at Los Angeles International Airport.

The awards banquet is open to the public. For information call 310-331-1551 or visit www.aeroclubsocal.org. The Club is a 501(c)(3) tax exempt non-profit association.

The Aero Club of Southern California was founded in 1925 “to increase public awareness of aviation in the United States and around the world.” Today it supports a robust scholarship program, and is dedicated to the advancement of aviation and aerospace and to honoring their outstanding contributors. Among the Club’s achievements is saving the Hughes Flying Boat aka the Spruce Goose, now the centerpiece of the Evergreen Aviation Museum in McMinnville, Oregon.