Six Degrees of Separation ON Topic

[Errol Groff]

After leaving OSH I picked up my wife at Midway airport in Chicago.
First airport i have ever visited where I could drive around it.
Drive down one side, turn left and repeat two more times and you are
back where you started. Anyway, on to the story,

So, there i was checking into a Hampton Inn in Evanston Wyoming. The
fellow talking to the clerk next to me said that his name was Epps. I
turned to him and asked if he was related to the Epps family in
Georgia. He said he was and asked how I knew of his family.

I said that in the '70s I had a friend, Ford Martyn of Niantic CT,
who had become interested in a biplane designed by a Ben Epps of
Georgia and had gone on to build a copy of the aircraft.

He replied that Ben Epps was his grand dad and his father had gone up
to Connecticut to see the plane.

So, there we were in Wyoming, one guy from CT, the other from GA and
we had a common connection. Amazing!

Sadly my friend has passed on but I remember him often and miss him
all the more at OSH. We went out together in 1971, my first of many
trips.

Errol Groff
EAA 60159

[wright1902glider]

Errol Groff wrote:
So, there i was checking into a Hampton Inn in Evanston Wyoming. The
> fellow talking to the clerk next to me said that his name was Epps. I
> turned to him and asked if he was related to the Epps family in
> Georgia. He said he was and asked how I knew of his family.
>
snipped...



Errol,

Do you know which biplane (design year) your friend built, and does it
still exist? If so, you might want to point this out to Pat Epps of
Epps Aviation in Atlanta (PDK FBO). The Museum of Aviation in Warner
Robins, GA might also be interested. They have a 1912 replica that was
built by Ben Epps Jr. You might also want to contact David Hill
(hillfamily.org). He's a cousin of the Epps' and has been looking for
information to build a 1924 monoplane replica. 2007 will mark the
centennial of flight in Georgia, and there could be significant
interest in a plane designed by GA's first aviator.

I've got a print of the Epps 1907 monoplane here in front of me on the
desk wall. The idea of building a replica of it keeps gnawing at me.

Harry Frey
Former PDK ramp rat