CREATOR - GEORGE CONNOLLY

  • Background
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  • Career Choice
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    George remembered seeing the sky filled with airplanes when he was four years old (probably en route to a celebration of the end of World War II) and deciding at that moment that he would be a pilot.
     
  • Education
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  • BS Aeronautical Engineering (1963), MBA (197?)
  • Air Force ROTC, Princeton University (1959-1963)
  • Career
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  • Military (1963-1989)
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  • Over 196 combat missions as F-105 Wild Weasel Pilot in Vietnam
  • Distinguished Flying Cross (12 times), Silver Star, and many other awards
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  • Civilian
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  • Electronic Countermeasures Engineer at Naval Research Laboratory (1989-1993)
  • Weapons Systems Engineer at Patuxent River Navail Air Station (1993-2007)
  • Personal
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  • Family
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  • three children, five grandchildren
  • spouse Gaile (2007-2021)
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  • Airplanes
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  • Lifelong obsession with everything related to airplanes
  • EAA member (1976-2021)
  • Set out to design an airplane "to see if his education was worth anything" (1987)
  • Built it in spare time, named it Daydream, registered tail number 105WW (1987-2018)
  • First flight scheduled Jan 30, 2018; cancelled due to cardiac arrest Jan 28, 2018
  • Never lost sight of goal to recover sufficiently to fly Daydream (2018-2021)
  • Bottom line - name Daydream turned out to be prophetic