Portrait Description: Eldon James
Snawder and Bonnie Powsell - first wife Eldon James Snawder
August 26, 1916 - Nov 23, 1963
Ken Martin thoughts on Eldon Snawder:
I came to work at Edwards AFB in June 1961. I was assigned to Eldon Snawder, the Chief of the Cargo Section of the Performance and Flying Qualities Flight Test Engineering Branch managed by Major Lou Setter and Don Smith. The other Section Chiefs were: Willie Allen, Fighter Section, Jack Strier, Bomber Section, and Charlie Crawford, Rotary Wing Section. I would guess there were on the order of forty engineers working on performance and flying qualities test programs in this branch at this time.
In 1960 Eldon and Test Pilot Joe Schiele went to France to perform flight test on a French airplane. The report is in the Test Wing Tech Library. Joe Schiele later said, “If Eldon graduated from Cal Poly San Luis Obispo I’m going to send my boys there.” Joe was obviously impressed with Eldon. Eldon spent a fair amount of time with me introducing me to the manuals and tools used to analyze flight test data. I will always remember shortly after I got to Edwards Eldon driving me up and down the flight line showing me all the airplanes under test.
Eldon fell one summer and smashed a mole on his back while water skiing. Unfortunately, this turned into an aggressive form of cancer. Elden passed away 23November1963 one day after John F. Kennedy was assassinated. Eldon had a bright future as a flight test engineering manager. His loss was felt by all in the Edwards engineering community.
Birth: Aug. 26, 1926
Death: Nov. 23, 1963
Oklahoma
CPL US Marine Corps Res
World War II
Burial:
Joshua Memorial Park
Lancaster
California, USA
From http://search.ancestry.com/cgi-bin/sse.dll?gl=allgs&gsln=Snawder&gspl=7&gss=seo&ghc=20
Portrait Description: Eldon James
Snawder and Bonnie Powsell - first wife
Beverly Ann Heaton - 2nd wife