Elrey B. Jeppesen
Elrey B. Jeppesen was born on January 28, 1907, in Lake Charles, LA, before moving to Portland. As a child, he watched eagles flying for hours, and flying became his obsession. In 1921, fourteen-year-old Jeppesen got his first taste of flying when a barnstormer took him up in a Curtiss JN-4 "Jenny" for a ten-minute flight for $4.
At 18, he joined Tex Rankin's Flying Circus "as a ticket taker, a prop turner, a wing walker, and an aerial acrobat." He soloed after two hours and fifteen minutes of flying lessons and purchased his own Jenny for $500. For two years, beginning in 1928, he worked for Fairchild Aerial Surveys, flying photographers over Mexico. That same year, the United States government gave out its first pilot's licenses; Jeppesen got Oregon's 27th license, which Orville Wright signed. In 1930, he joined Boeing Air Transport as an airmail pilot.
Pilots at that time depended on Rand McNally's automobile road maps, railroad tracks, and landmarks to find their way. Jeppesen purchased a ten-cent notebook and wrote detailed notes about his routes. He even climbed hills to determine their height and got telephone numbers of farmers willing to provide weather reports. Word got around about his "Little Black Book," and soon he gave copies to his fellow pilots. As demand picked up, in 1934, he founded Jeppesen & Co. in the basement of his Salt Lake City home to sell his information for $10 a copy.
With the onset of World War II, the United States Army and Navy kept Jeppesen busy supplying them with his charts. His innovation in the flight guiding system led to a 16-foot statue in the center of the main terminal at Denver International Airport - the main terminal was also named in his honor.
At 18, he joined Tex Rankin's Flying Circus "as a ticket taker, a prop turner, a wing walker, and an aerial acrobat." He soloed after two hours and fifteen minutes of flying lessons and purchased his own Jenny for $500. For two years, beginning in 1928, he worked for Fairchild Aerial Surveys, flying photographers over Mexico. That same year, the United States government gave out its first pilot's licenses; Jeppesen got Oregon's 27th license, which Orville Wright signed. In 1930, he joined Boeing Air Transport as an airmail pilot.
Pilots at that time depended on Rand McNally's automobile road maps, railroad tracks, and landmarks to find their way. Jeppesen purchased a ten-cent notebook and wrote detailed notes about his routes. He even climbed hills to determine their height and got telephone numbers of farmers willing to provide weather reports. Word got around about his "Little Black Book," and soon he gave copies to his fellow pilots. As demand picked up, in 1934, he founded Jeppesen & Co. in the basement of his Salt Lake City home to sell his information for $10 a copy.
With the onset of World War II, the United States Army and Navy kept Jeppesen busy supplying them with his charts. His innovation in the flight guiding system led to a 16-foot statue in the center of the main terminal at Denver International Airport - the main terminal was also named in his honor.