The Aero Club of New England plans to fete Rudy Frasca as the 2009 recipient of the nationally acclaimed Godfrey L. Cabot Award, at a luncheon to be held at Seaport Hotel, Boston, on June 5, the organization said on May 6. Frasca will receive the award in recognition of his lifelong, innovative developments in flight simulation, which “have enhanced world aviation by safety through training,” the announcement said.
The Cabot Award, which commemorates the late Dr. Godfrey L. Cabot, is presented each year to a person or organization having made outstanding contributions to aviation.
Born of Italian immigrants in Melrose Park, Illinois, in 1931, Frasca began taking flying lessons at the age of 14. In1949 he joined the Navy and worked as a flight instructor, teaching pilots on early Link trainers. After the Korean War, he attended the University of Illinois, where he did research in Aviation Psychology and honed his interest in the field of flight simulation. In 1958 he built his first flight simulator in his garage and founded Frasca Aviation, later changed to Frasca International as the company grew. Today there are more than 2,000 Frasca flight-training devices in 70 countries, training pilots.
The Aero Club of New England, the oldest surviving aero club in the Americas, was chartered by the Commonwealth of Massachusetts on December 9, 1907, but aviation annals reveal that it predates its charter by five years, to when it was organized on January 2, 1902, nearly two full years before the Wright brothers made their landmark flight on December 17, 1903.
For luncheon tickets: http://www.acone.org
