Harry B. Combs

Harry Benjamin Combs (27 January 1913 – 23 December 2003) was an American aviation pioneer, airplane manufacturer, and author. He was founder of Combs Aviation and president of Gates Learjet Corporation.

He was a pioneering soaring pilot who "lived and breathed the Golden and Jet Ages of aviation." He was inducted into the National Aviation Hall of Fame in 1996.

Combs saw his first airplane in 1917 at the age of four when he traveled with his grandmother from Denver to a Royal Flying Corps training field in Deseronto, Canada where his father was training. He was also chairman of Cannon & Castle Military Society and a member of the Torch Honor Society. He was also associated with Lockheed Aircraft's Skunk Works, working on the U-2, the F-104, and the SR-71 Blackbird projects. In 1975, he relocated the business from Wichita to Tucson, Arizona. "Four Flights at Kill Devil," Dayton Daily News, (January 27, 1980): 89. Twelve Seconds that Changed the World: The Amazing Story of the Wright Brothers. Washington, D.C.: American Society for Aerospace Education, 1982

Video

How Strong Is The Wind —40 minutes. TernStyle Press, Ltd, 1983. 303-790-8250

Awards

1998: Exceptional Achievement Award, Soaring Society of America 1997: World Distance Award, Soaring Society of America for completing 40,000 km WDA 1985: Exceptional Achievement Award, Soaring Society of America 1980: James J. Streiberg Award, Aviation/Space Writer's Foundation, National Air and Space Museum, for Kill Devil Hill In 1997, he was selected to present The Ralph Stanton Barnaby Lecture to the Soaring Society of America.

Personal life In 1936, Combs married Clara Van Schaack. They had three children—Harry B. Combs Jr., Anthony "Tony" Combs, and Clara Combs—before divorcing in 1954. He married his second wife Virginia (Ginney) in 1956.

Combs liked skiing, fishing, and big game hunting, going on safaris in Botswana, Kenya, Mozambique, Uganda, and Zambia. He was an avid horseman and owned three cattle ranches in Colorado—The Sleeping Indian in Ridgeway, a 19,000-acre ranch and game preserve in Elbert and El Paso counties, and a 6,000-acre cattle ranch and game reserve in Ouray County. After he retired, he summered at a ranch in Montana and spent the winters in Wickenburg. However, he also maintained a house in Denver.

For the First Flight Centennial Celebration of the Wright brothers' first flight, Combs donated a full-scale reproduction of the 1903 Wright Flyer to the National Park Service. Valued at $1 million, the airplane replica was reversed engineered using documents from the Wright brothers. On December 17, 2003, he attended the dedication ceremonies for the Combs-Wright Flyer at Kitty Hawk. The replica was displayed at the Wright Brothers National Memorial at Kill Devil Hills, North Carolina. He gave $1.2 million to the National Aviation Hall of Fame in 2001 for a learning and research center.

In 2003, he died in New York City at the age of 90 due to a heart condition.