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Jim Corley - Spruce Creek

David-aviator

Well Known Member
Just found out Jim Corley passed away last November.

Jim and I lost contact in recent years but were great friends at TWA having been hired on the same day and living together during initial training in Kansas City.

Does anyone here know the circumstances of his passing? I've read the obit but no indication of what happened.
 
I know Jim but not well. We were traveling during that time, but did not hear anything out of ordinary.


In case you have not read this:

http://eaa288.org/index.php/news/jim-corley

Thanks Ted. I did read the Chapter 288 tribute to him.
At the time we were hired there was a dearth of qualified applicants, the market had dried up because every major airline was hiring. TWA had a short term deal for otherwise intelligent, well educated persons interested in flying - go out and get a commercial/instrument ticket ASAP and you will be hired.

Jim did that and came to class with about 200 hours of light plane time. He was smart and driven and we had great fun bringing him up to speed on operating heavy airplanes, in our case the first was the Convair 880. He later went on to check out on most of the Boeing airplanes TWA had and ended up in management as a check air man at JFK.

I visited him once at Spruce Creek years ago, we're been retired since '99. I know at one point he was part owned of an RV-8 that he wrecked in a cross wind landing, I had a long conversation with him about what happened - sudden burst of cross wind, rolling out and passing one of the intersections at the air port. He was trapped in the wreck for a time with leaking fuel but fortunately there was not fire.

Jim was a health nut, just wondering what did him in. We were abut the same age.
 
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