It’s very saddening to hear this. Ed was one of those guys that I was always glad to see and enjoyed hanging out with. When I began flying pattern Ed was already a Masters pilot, but even to an underclassman he always went out of his way to be helpful. His calm and analytical nature and view of pattern flying was very relaxing and reassuring. I learned a lot from our discussions, in fact, one Monday after a contest I got an unsolicited email from Ed recapping our discussion with a list of items he felt I should work on, along with a phone number if I wanted to talk to him. How many guys do that?

One memory I’ll always have of Ed is when he would call for me he could sense when I was getting uptight and between maneuvers he would calmly say, “OK, take a deep breath… relax…”, and it would work.

Ed, your passing is a great loss to our community, I’m really going to miss you.

Keith Black