Jerry Summers
As anticipated, the March 28, 2022, article on the history of aviation on the domain outside the city limits of Monteagle, presently known as the University of the South, produced a response that provided additional historical data on what is now part of the rich past of flying on runways 6 and 24 on the 3700-foot x 50-foot paved premises.
Matt Brothers of the prominent Brothers family of Nashville and elsewhere (Boston) started the inquiry on Bill Kershner by relating that he was born in Clarksville, Tennessee and started flying in March 1945 at the age of 15. He earned flying time by washing, fueling, and propping airplanes.
During this period, he would obtain his private, commercial and flight instructor license, all by the age of 19.
In the early 1950s he spent four years as a Naval Aviator in a night fighter squadron that would be stationed on both land and carrier-based aircraft off of the carrier Philippine Sea in the Pacific.
After his military service Bill would fly for three years as a corporate pilot and for an additional five years for Piper Aircraft Company, as a special assistant to president, William T.
Piper, Sr.
While a student at Iowa State University, Kershner took courses in aerodynamics, performance, stability and control, design, and performance plus others in the aeronautical engineering data.
He has flown all types of aircraft ranging from 40 horsepower Piper Cubs to jet fighters.
He arrived at Sewanee, Tennessee in 1964 to operate a one-plane one-instructor aerobatics school using a Cessna 752 Aerobat aircraft.
In that capacity he taught more than 500 students who completed his course in “defensive flying” which included basic airplane performance, stability, and control and advanced aerobatic maneuvers.
A prolific author while at Sewanee, he wrote several treatises which are considered the sources upon all potential pilots are instructed.
They include:
1.The Student Pilot’s Flight Manual;
2.The Instrument Flight Manual;
3.The Advanced Pilot’s Flight Manual;
4.The Flight Instructor’s Manual;
5.The Basic Aerobatic Manual, and
6.Logging Flight Time, and several others
The Kershner Flight Manual Series is credited with influencing hundreds of thousands of pilots with over 1.3 million copies printed in several languages.
During his flying career he was credited with flying more than 11,000 documented hours including 1150 hours in military service, 1900 hours in multi-engine aircraft, 4300 aerobatic instruction hours and more than 8000 separate spins of up to 25 turns.
Under his mentorship, a young professor of mathematics at Sewanee, Catherine Cavagnaro, continued the development of aviation history at the mountain that still exists today as described in the prior March 28, 2022, article titled “Sewanee’s Flying Tigers.”
Professor Cavagnaro under Kershner’s influence has also been inducted into the Tennessee Aviation Hall of Fame. He was among the first aviators to be selected for the honor in 2002.
Other exclusive flying societies honored him with membership starting in 1970 with the Tennessee Ninety-Nines award and they continued regularly through 2002.
In appreciation for his support of aviation at Sewanee he was awarded an Honorary Doctor of Science from the University of the South in 2001.
He died in 2007 leaving an impressive lifelong record in the field of aviation and by establishing a future blueprint for providing flight instruction for pilots at Sewanee and throughout the world.
------
Jerry Summers
(If you have additional information about one of Mr. Summers' articles or have suggestions or ideas about a future Chattanooga area historical piece, please contact Mr. Summers at jsummers@summersfirm.com)
William Kershner