Jack Pedesky made his mark in aviation by test piloting the giant aircraft "Super Guppy," as well as for safely landing a burning plane in an Oklahoma field during a lightning storm.
"He flew everything with a propeller from 1940 to 1968," said Mac Macomber, a member of the Pacific Aviation Museum’s multimedia department. "He was a pioneer aviator. … He is very important in aviation."
The 89-year-old Nuuanu resident died at his home in wife Geraldine’s arms June 27 due to complications from cancer, she said.
Macomber, who interviewed Pedesky for the museum’s oral history project, said Pedesky piloted the first test flights for AeroSpace Lines’ Super Guppy, touted as the world’s largest airplane, in 1965 from the West Coast to Cape Canaveral.
The whalelike cargo plane was built to carry NASA’s Saturn V launch vehicle and the Lunar Excursion Module Adapter, too large to be transported by any then-existing aircraft and which could not be trucked or shipped.
"Wernher von Braun told him America wouldn’t have gotten to the moon until 10 years later if it hadn’t been for the Super Guppy," Macomber said.
Pedesky’s wife of 53 years, Geraldine "Gerri" Golick Pedesky, said her husband had to use a tape measure and a pad and pencil as he test-flew the Super Guppy because "instruments don’t tell you how far to push the throttle to make the engines go to a certain RPM," adding that it was "very dangerous."
She said her husband "had nine lives or 10 or 20," escaping death so many times.
Before test-piloting the Super Guppy, Pedesky was honored by the Airline Transport Association as Pilot of the Year in 1954 for safely landing a plane, with one engine on fire, during a nighttime thunderstorm. Pedesky swerved to avoid houses and a culvert, and landed the plane in a dirt field in Gauge, Okla. The left wheel collapsed, so he swung the plane around. The plane’s 74 passengers got out unharmed.
Pedesky, a World War II Navy pilot, joined the VB-144 Squadron in California, and flew the PV-1 bomber.
In 1943, the squadron transferred to Kaneohe, then Tarawa and later Roi Island, his family said. "He flew numerous combat missions against enemy-held islands, Wotje Atoll and Ponape," his family said in a written statement.
As a civilian pilot, Pedesky flew for Great Lakes Airlines, Pan American World Airways and Japan Air Lines. He also flew during the Korean airlift.
He logged 29,000 flight hours before retiring at the mandatory age of 60.
He then worked for the Federal Aviation Administration in Hawaii as an operations inspector.
Born in Hollywood, Calif., to vaudeville band leader Melbourne Pedesky and wife, Claudine, he was raised in Hollywood with the stars, his wife said. He went everywhere with his parents, and mixed with musicians.
Pedesky was a bit of an entertainer himself.
He was humorous, a good singer and an entertainer of sorts, and "a very sweet man," Gerri Pedesky said.
Those qualities served him well as a docent, storyteller and greeter at the Pacific Aviation Museum on Ford Island.
"We gave him the opportunity to chat and talk with people rather than give tours," said museum Director Ken DeHoff. "He had so much experience in so many different kinds of airplanes.
"He had a knack about being able to meet anybody and relate to them immediately and relate to them through his aviation experience," Pedesky said.
He is also survived by son Kurt; daughter Kristine McGuire; and grandsons James and Mike McGuire.
Mass will be held at noon July 18 at the Cathedral of Our Lady of Peace. Interment is at the National Memorial Cemetery at Punchbowl at 1:45 p.m.
A Celebration of Life will be held 5:30 p.m. July 18 at the Pacific Aviation Museum on Ford Island. Call Loretta Fung, 441-1008 by today to access Ford Island.
